the spirit of the chinese people

Using a term which is applied to animals, we may say of the real Chinaman that he is a domesticated creature.

" Now what I want to say of the European civilisation is that it is, as Mr. Berenson says of European art, a battlefield for divided interests; a continuous warfare for the divided interests of science and art on the one hand, and of religion and philosophy on the other; in fact a terrible battlefield where the head and the heart_the soul and the intellect_come into constant conflict.

Neither does it come to him from instinct, such as the intelligence of the fox, _ the vulpine intelligence which knows where eatable chickens are to be found.

Religion, I say, lightens this burden by giving the mass of mankind a sense of security and a sense of permanence.

The four characters were Ming fen to. yi (^'^_^fo^C) .

But what I mean by the spirit of the Chinese people, is the spirit by which the Chinese people live, something constitutionally distinctive in the mind, temper and sentiment of the Chinese people which distinguishes them from all other people, especially from those of modem Europe and America.

The Church religion in Europe makes marriage a sacrament, i.e.,something sacred and inviolable.

Now what is the difference between the law of the gentleman of Confucius and moral law_I mean the moral law or law of morality of the philosopher and moralist as distinguished from religion or law of morality taught by religious teachers.

This conflict of the heart and head in the new order of society and civilisation which men tried to reconstruct made the Chinese people feel dissatisfied with all civilisation, and in the agony and despair which this dissatisfaction produced, the Chinese people wanted to pull down and destroy all civilisation.

But now you will ask me how without a belief in God which religion teaches, how can one make men, make the mass of mankind, follow and obey the moral rule which Confucius teaches, the absolute duty of loyalty to the Emperor, as you can by the authority of God which the belief in God gives, make men follow and obey moral rules given by religion?

In a way Confucius in this book taught the divine right of kings.

It is inspiration.

Indeed the very physical and moral imperfections of a real Chinaman are, if not redeemed, at least softened by this quality of gentleness in him.

This Code of the laws of good manners of the Duke of Chou may be consideral as the pre-Confucian religion in China, or, as the Mosaic law of the Jewish nation before Christianity is called, the Religion of the Old Dispensation of the Chinese people.

The wild, savage man of Africa even, as soon as he emerges from a mere animal life and what is called the soul in him, is awakened, _ feels the need of religion.

The whole life of Chinaman is a life of feeling_not feeling in the sense of sensation which comes from the bodily organs, nor feeling in the sense of passions which flow, as you would say, from the nervous system, but feeling in the sense of emotion or human affection which comes from the deepest part of our nature_the heart or soul.

But then it is important you should remember that this nation of children, who live a life of the heart, who are so primitive in many of their ways, have yet a power of mind and rationality which you do not find in a primitive people, a power of mind and rationality which has enabled them to deal with the complex and difficult problems of social life, government and civilisation with a success which, I will venture to say here, the ancient and modern nations of Europe have not been ab...

Carlyle says: "The right of a king to govern us is either a divine right or a diabolic wrong.

Using a term which is applied to animals, we may say of the real Chinaman that he is a domesticated creature.

But how does the Church awaken and kindle this inspiration in men?

The Moral Law when refined and put into proper order is what we call Religion.

It is certainly true that in China even the mass of the people do not take seriously to religion.

But Reason, as it is generally understood, means our reasoning power, that slow process of mind or intellect which enables us to distinguish and recognise the definable properties and qualities of the outward forms of _ things.

As they were men of exceptionally strong e-motional nature, they had a powerful imagination, which unconsciously personified this unity of moral laws as an almighty supernatural Being.

Now Confucius codified this law of the gentleman and made it a Religion, _a State religion.

"The docility of the Chinese," says the late Dr. D. J. Macgowan, "is not the docility of a broken-hearted, emasculated people.

The truth of the matter is, _the reason why the Chinese people do not feel the need of religion is because they have in Confucianism a system of philosophy and ethics, a synthesis of human society and civilisation which can take the place of religion.

If the resting is right, then the God, too, is right; if the resting is wrong, then the God, too, is illusory.

The reason, I say, is because children and uneducated persons think and speak with the language of the heart, whereas educated men, especially men with the modern intellectual education of Europe, think and speak with the language of the head or intellect.

In short, it is this combination of fraud and force, Jesuitism and Militarism, lawyer and policeman, which has produced Anarchists and Anarchism in modem society, this combination of force and fraud outraging the moral sense in man and producing madness which makes the Anarchist throw bomb and dynamite against the lawyer, politician, magistrate and president of a republic.

Now it is a well-known fact that children and uneducated persons among foreigners in China learn Chinese very easily, much more so than grown-up and educated persons.

In presence of the threatening forces of Nature and the cruel merciless passions of their fellowmen and the mystery and terror which these inspire, religion gives to the mass of mankind a refuge_a refuge in which they can find a sense of security ; and that refuge is a belief in some supernatural Being or beings who have absolute power and control over those forces which threaten them.

But if tables of statistics and the pure abstract sciences fill the Chinese with aversion, the physical sciences as they are now pursued in Europe, which require you to cut up and mutilate the body of a living animal in order to verify a scientific theory, would inspire the Chinese with repugnance and horror.

This sacrament of the contract of allegiance in the State religion taught by Confucius in China might thus be called the Sacrament or Religion of Loyalty.

With the idea of a future life still unawakened, a plain, matter-of-fact system of morality, such as that enunciated by Confucius, was sufficient for all the wants of the Chinese.

Until men understand something of the nature, law, purpose and aim of the things which they see in the universe, they are like children in a dark room who feel the danger, insecurity and uncertainty of everything.

In presence of the threatening forces of Nature and the cruel merciless passions of their fellowmen and the mystery and terror which these inspire, religion gives to the mass of mankind a refuge_a refuge in which they can find a sense of security ; and that refuge is a belief in some supernatural Being or beings who have absolute power and control over those forces which threaten them.

But then it is important you should remember that this nation of children, who live a life of the heart, who are so primitive in many of their ways, have yet a power of mind and rationality which you do not find in a primitive people, a power of mind and rationality which has enabled them to deal with the complex and difficult problems of social life, government and civilisation with a success which, I will venture to say here, the ancient and modern nations of Europe have not been ab...

The sanction for the sacrament of marriage in Europe is given by the Church and the authority for the sanction is God.

I once read somewhere a statement made by a foreigner who had lived in both countries, that the longer a foreigner lives in Japan the more he dislikes the Japanese, whereas the longer a foreigner lives in China the more he likes the Chinese.

Now when we speak of religion in its broad universal sense, we mean generally a system of teachings with rules of conduct which, as Goethe says, is accepted as true and binding by the mass of mankind, or at least, by the mass of the population in a people or nation.

The Mongolian mind being eminently phlegmatic and. unspeculative, naturally rebels against the idea of investigating matters beyond its experiences.

Mencius said: "Of the three great sins against filial piety the greatest is to have no posterity."

The whole life of Chinaman is a life of feeling_not feeling in the sense of sensation which comes from the bodily organs, nor feeling in the sense of passions which flow, as you would say, from the nervous system, but feeling in the sense of emotion or human affection which comes from the deepest part of our nature_the heart or soul.

The Chinese spirit, therefore, is a spirit of perpetual youth, the spirit of national immortality.

Now it is a well-known fact that children and uneducated persons among foreigners in China learn Chinese very easily, much more so than grown-up and educated persons.

Laotzu and Chuang-tzu, the most brilliant of Laotzu' s disciples, told the Chinese people to throw away all civilisation.

With the idea of a future life still unawakened, a plain, matter-of-fact system of morality, such as that enunciated by Confucius, was sufficient for all the wants of the Chinese.

It is this fact which has made sceptics like Voltaire and Tom Paine in the last century, and rationalists like Sir Hiram Maxim today, say, that the belief in God is a fraud or imposture invented by the founders of religion and kept up by priests.

Confucius, as some of you may know, lived in what is called a period of expansion in the history of China_a period in which the feudal age had come to an end; in which the feudal, the semi-patriarchal social order and form of government had to be expanded and reconstructed.

In that way the policeman must sooner or later come to the conclusion that, as there is .no such thing as a sense of honour and morality in politics, there is then no earthly reason why, if he can get better pay, which means also the good of society_no reason why, instead of being a policeman, he should not become a revolutionist or anarchist- In a society when the policeman once comes to the conclusion that there is no reason why, if he can get better pay, he should not become a revo...

The first Article of Faith in this State Religion is Ming fen ta yi_the Principle of Honour and Duty_which may thus be called: A Code of Honour.

Indeed, it is a remarkable fact that for a people who have lived so long in the world as a great nation, the Chinese people should to this day be so primitive in many of their ways.

But the motive which impels the true men of science to pursue its study is not because they want to have railways and aeroplanes.

There is in the true Chinese type of humanity an air, so to speak, of a quiet, sober, chastened mellowness, such as you find in a piece of well-tempered metal.

The Church religion in Europe makes marriage a sacrament, i.e.,something sacred and inviolable.

Philosophy also enables the philosophers to see method and order in the universe, and that lightens for them the burden of this mystery.

It is this fraud, this Jesuitism of the public men in modem society, who say and act on the principle that there is no morality, no sense of honour in politics and yet plausibly talk of the good of society and the good of the country; it is this Jesuitism which, as Carlyle says, gives rise to "the widespread suffering, mutiny, delirium, the hot rage of sansculottic insurrections, the cold rage of resuscitated tyrannies, brutal degradation of the millions, the pampered frivolity of the...

What impelled those true men of science in Europe and what made them succeed in their work for the advancement of science, was because they felt in their souls the need of understanding the awful mystery of the wonderful universe in which we live.

By gentleness I do not mean softness of nature or weak submissiveness.

The Church thus awakens and kindles the inspiration or living emotion in men necessary to make them obey the rules of moral conduct, by keeping up, exciting and arousing, the feeling and emotion of unbounded admiration, love, and enthusiasm for the person and character of the first Teacher and Founder of religion which the immediate disciples originally felt.

Either by the sense of honour in the policemen or by fraud.

Confucius, in the State religion which he now gave, taught that, as under the old dispensation of what I have called the Family religion before his time, the wife and husband in a family are bound by the sacrament of marriage, called Chou Kung Chih Li, the Law of good manners of the Duke of Chou_to hold their contract of marriage inviolable and to absolutely abide by it, so under the new dispensation of the State religion which he now gave, the people and their sovereign in every Slate, the ...

A Paper that was to have been read before the Oriental Society of Peking

LET me first of all explain to you what I propose, with your permission, this afternoon to discuss.

In modem times all over the world to-day_and I am sorry to say now also in China_the lawyer, politician, magistrate and president of a republic make the policeman do his duty by fraud.

" The Confucianist answers the words of his Catechism by saying: "The chief end of man is to live as a dutiful son and a good citizen.

The Chinese people in Confucius' s time found themselves with an immense system of institutions, established facts, accredited dogmas, customs, laws_in fact, an immense system of society and civilisation which had come down to them from their venerated ancestors.

But if tables of statistics and the pure abstract sciences fill the Chinese with aversion, the physical sciences as they are now pursued in Europe, which require you to cut up and mutilate the body of a living animal in order to verify a scientific theory, would inspire the Chinese with repugnance and horror.

Matthew Arnold, speaking of Homer and the quality of nobleness in his poetry, says: "The nobleness in the poetry of Homer and of the few great men in literature can refine the raw, natural man, can transmute him.

In this book Confucius gave a resume of the history of a false and decadent state of society and civilisation in which he traced all the suffering and misery of that false and decadent state of society and civilisation to its real cause_to the fact that men had not a true idea of a State; no right conception of the true nature of the duty which they owe to the State, to the head of the State, their ruler and Sovereign.

The Christian Catechism asks:_"What is the chief end of man'?"

The value of religion, of all the great religions in the world, is that they have an organisation for awakening, exciting, and kindling the inspiration or living emotion in men necessary to make them obey the rules of moral conduct.

It is this fraud, this Jesuitism of the public men in modem society, who say and act on the principle that there is no morality, no sense of honour in politics and yet plausibly talk of the good of society and the good of the country; it is this Jesuitism which, as Carlyle says, gives rise to "the widespread suffering, mutiny, delirium, the hot rage of sansculottic insurrections, the cold rage of resuscitated tyrannies, brutal degradation of the millions, the pampered frivolity of the...

Perhaps I can best express what I mean by calling the subject of our discussion the Chinese type of humanity, or, to put it in plainer and shorter words, the real Chinaman.

Now, this absolute Divine duty of loyalty to the Emperor of every man, woman, and child in the whole Chinese Empire gives, as you can understand, in the minds of the Chinese population, an absolute, supreme, transcendent, almighty power to the Emperor; and this belief in the absolute, supreme, transcendent, almighty power of the Emperor it is which gives to the Chinese people, to the mass of the population in China, the same sense of security which the belief in God in religion gives ...

Again, as the absolute Divine duty of loyalty taught by Confucius secures the immortality of the race in the nation, so the cult of ancestor-worship taught in Confucianism secures the immortality of the race in the family.

Besides, when we speak of the character or characteristics of the Chinese, it is not possible to generalize.

Again, in presence of the constant change, vicissitude and transition of things in their own lives_birth, childhood, youth, old age and death, and the mystery and uncertainty which these inspire, religion gives to the mass of mankind also a refuge_a refuge in which they can find a sense of permanence; and that refuge is the belief in a future life.

When I was in Japan last year the ex-Minister of Education, Baron Kikuchi, asked me to translate four Chinese characters taken from the book in which, as I said, Confucius taught this State religion of his.

The merchants again_unless merchants recognise and feel themselves bound by the sense of honour to fulfil their contracts, all trading would become impossible.

But the lawyer, magistrate or president of a republic_how does he make the policeman do his duty?

The Chinese people in Confucius' s time found themselves with an immense system of institutions, established facts, accredited dogmas, customs, laws_in fact, an immense system of society and civilisation which had come down to them from their venerated ancestors.

"

Matthew Arnold calls the poetry of the best Greek poets the priestess of imaginative reason.

In this book Confucius gave a resume of the history of a false and decadent state of society and civilisation in which he traced all the suffering and misery of that false and decadent state of society and civilisation to its real cause_to the fact that men had not a true idea of a State; no right conception of the true nature of the duty which they owe to the State, to the head of the State, their ruler and Sovereign.

Now the awakening of this sense in the Chinese people ,years ago was the awakening of what in Europe to-day is called the modern spirit_the spirit of liberalism, the spirit of enquiry, to find out the why and the wherefore of things.

When you analyse this quality of inexpressible gentleness in the real Chinaman, you will find that it is the the product of a combination of two things, namely, sympathy and intelligence.

Indeed the very words "science" and "logic" in the European languages have no exact equivalent in the Chinese language.

The heavy and the weary weight of All this unintelligible world.

But the motive which impels the true men of science to pursue its study is not because they want to have railways and aeroplanes.

Now what is the essence of true politeness?

In presence of the threatening forces of Nature and the cruel merciless passions of their fellowmen and the mystery and terror which these inspire, religion gives to the mass of mankind a refuge_a refuge in which they can find a sense of security ; and that refuge is a belief in some supernatural Being or beings who have absolute power and control over those forces which threaten them.

" Now what I want to say of the European civilisation is that it is, as Mr. Berenson says of European art, a battlefield for divided interests; a continuous warfare for the divided interests of science and art on the one hand, and of religion and philosophy on the other; in fact a terrible battlefield where the head and the heart_the soul and the intellect_come into constant conflict.

But now I must tell you that long before Confucius' time there existed already in China an undefined and unwritten code of the law of the gentleman.

The Chinese people in Confucius' s time found themselves with an immense system of institutions, established facts, accredited dogmas, customs, laws_in fact, an immense system of society and civilisation which had come down to them from their venerated ancestors.

The Christian people of medieval Europe, as we know, also lived a life of the heart.

Mencius said: "Of the three great sins against filial piety the greatest is to have no posterity."

In fact what I want to say is, that even in the faults and blemishes of body, mind and character of the real Chinaman, there is nothing which revolts you.

In presence of the threatening forces of Nature and the cruel merciless passions of their fellowmen and the mystery and terror which these inspire, religion gives to the mass of mankind a refuge_a refuge in which they can find a sense of security ; and that refuge is a belief in some supernatural Being or beings who have absolute power and control over those forces which threaten them.

This indescribable something which I have defined as gentleness, softens and mitigates, if it does not redeem, the physical and moral defects of the Chinese in the hearts of foreigners.

In short, it is this combination of fraud and force, Jesuitism and Militarism, lawyer and policeman, which has produced Anarchists and Anarchism in modem society, this combination of force and fraud outraging the moral sense in man and producing madness which makes the Anarchist throw bomb and dynamite against the lawyer, politician, magistrate and president of a republic.

In this system their life had to be carried forward; yet they began to feel_they had a sense that this system was not of their creation, that it by no means corresponded with the wants of their actual life; that, for them, it was customary, not rational.

Confucius, in the State religion which he now gave, taught that, as under the old dispensation of what I have called the Family religion before his time, the wife and husband in a family are bound by the sacrament of marriage, called Chou Kung Chih Li, the Law of good manners of the Duke of Chou_to hold their contract of marriage inviolable and to absolutely abide by it, so under the new dispensation of the State religion which he now gave, the people and their sovereign in every Slate, the ...

There is in the true Chinese type of humanity an air, so to speak, of a quiet, sober, chastened mellowness, such as you find in a piece of well-tempered metal.

It is not an intelligence which comes to him from reasoning.

The Chinese people in Confucius' s time found themselves with an immense system of institutions, established facts, accredited dogmas, customs, laws_in fact, an immense system of society and civilisation which had come down to them from their venerated ancestors.

Reason, our reasoning power, therefore, enables us to see in moral relations only the definable properties and qualities, the mores, the morality, as it is rightly called, the outward manner and dead form, the body, so to speak, of right and wrong, or justice.

This modern spirit in China then, seeing the want of correspondence of the old order of society and civilisation with the wants of their actual life, set itself not only to reconstruct a new order of society and civilisation, but also to find a basis for this new order of society and civilisation.

Now, the founders of all the great religions in the world, as we know, were all of them men of exceptionally or even abnormally strong emotional nature.

What impelled those true men of science in Europe and what made them succeed in their work for the advancement of science, was because they felt in their souls the need of understanding the awful mystery of the wonderful universe in which we live.

It is not an intelligence which comes to him from reasoning.

Confucius, in the State religion which he now gave, taught that, as under the old dispensation of what I have called the Family religion before his time, the wife and husband in a family are bound by the sacrament of marriage, called Chou Kung Chih Li, the Law of good manners of the Duke of Chou_to hold their contract of marriage inviolable and to absolutely abide by it, so under the new dispensation of the State religion which he now gave, the people and their sovereign in every Slat...

It secured once for all the stability and permanence of the family in China.

The real Church_of which the School is but an adjunct_the real and true Church of the State Religion of Confucius in China, is the Family with its ancestral tablet or chapel in every house, and its ancestral Hall or Temple in every village and town.

This indescribable something which I have defined as gentleness, softens and mitigates, if it does not redeem, the physical and moral defects of the Chinese in the hearts of foreigners.

Confucius, as some of you may know, lived in what is called a period of expansion in the history of China_a period in which the feudal age had come to an end; in which the feudal, the semi-patriarchal social order and form of government had to be expanded and reconstructed.

In this system their life had to be carried forward; yet they began to feel_they had a sense that this system was not of their creation, that it by no means corresponded with the wants of their actual life; that, for them, it was customary, not rational.

Comparing European with Oriental art, Mr. Berenson says:_"Our European art has the fatal tendency to become science and we hardly possess a masterpiece which does not bear the marks of having heen a battlefield for divided interests.

Confucius, as some of you may know, lived in what is called a period of expansion in the history of China_a period in which the feudal age had come to an end; in which the feudal, the semi-patriarchal social order and form of government had to be expanded and reconstructed.

In fact I propose that before the real Chinaman, the old Chinese type of humanity, disappears altogether from the world we should take a good last look at him and see if we can find anything organically distinctive in him which makes him so different from all other people and from the new type of humanity which we see rising up in China today.

This Divine or absolute duty of loyalty to the Emperor in China which Confucius taught derives its sanction, not as the theory of the Divine right of kings in Europe derives its sanction from the authority of a supernatural Being called God or from some abstruse philosophy, but from the law of the gentleman_the sense of honour in man, the same sense of honour which in all countries makes the wife loyal to her husband.

Now, as you all know, the rise of civil society in the history of all nations begins always with the institution of marriage.

The Spirit of the Chinese People, I want to tell you, is a state of mind, a temper of the soul, which you cannot learn as you learn shorthand or Esperanto_in short, a mood, or in the words of the poet, a serene and blessed mood.

In other words, what I want to say, is that in modern Europe, the people have a religion which satisfies their heart, but not their head, and a philosophy which satisfies their head but not their heart.

In other words, Confucius gave a new, wider and more comprehensive application to the law of the gentleman in the State religion which he taught; and as the Family religion, or Religion of the Old Dispensation in China before his time instituted the sacrament of marriage, Confucius, in giving this new, wider, and more comprehensive application to the law of the gentleman in the State religion which he taught, instituted a new sacrament.

A Scotch friend of mine in the Customs told me he once had a Chinese servant who was a perfect scamp, who lied, who "squeezed, " and who was always gambling, but when my friend fell ill with typhoid fever in an out-of-the-way port where he had no foreign friend to attend to him, this awful scamp of a Chinese servant nursed him with a care and devotion which he could not have expected from an intimate friend or near relation.

Confucius indeed was descended from a race of kings, the house of Shang, the dynasty which ruled over China before the dynasty under which Confucius lived_a race of men who had the strong emotional nature of the Hebrew people.

The mass of the population in China do not adore and worship Confucius as the mass of the population in Mohammedan countries adore and worship Mohammed, or as the mass of the population in European countries adore and worship Jesus Christ.

But the lawyer, magistrate or president of a republic_how does he make the policeman do his duty?

Now it is because the Chinese live a life of the heart, the life of a child, that they are so primitive in many of their ways.

But what I mean by the spirit of the Chinese people, is the spirit by which the Chinese people live, something constitutionally distinctive in the mind, temper and sentiment of the Chinese people which distinguishes them from all other people, especially from those of modem Europe and America.

This book might also be called the Latter Day Annals, like the Latter Day Pamphlets of Carlyle.

I say it is fraud because without the recognition of a sense of honour_the sense of honour which makes the gambler pay the last penny in his pocket to the player who wins from him, without this sense of honour, all transfer and possession of property which makes the inequality of the rich and poor in society, as well as the transfer of money on a gambling table, has no justification whatever and no binding force.

Confucius said: "At fifty I knew the Ordinance of God" * _i.e., the Divine Order of the Universe.

That, I am sure, you will all agree with me, is a very interesting subject, especially at the present moment, when from what we see going on around us in China today, it would seem that the Chinese type of humanity_the real Chinaman_is going to disappear and, in his place, we are going to have a new type of humanity_the progressive or modern Chinaman.

" In fact, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue and if there be any praise_the school, the Church of the State religion in China, makes men think on these things, and in making them think on these things, awakens and kindles the inspiration or living e-motion necessary to enable and make them obey the rules of moral conduct.

The whole life of Chinaman is a life of feeling_not feeling in the sense of sensation which comes from the bodily organs, nor feeling in the sense of passions which flow, as you would say, from the nervous system, but feeling in the sense of emotion or human affection which comes from the deepest part of our nature_the heart or soul.

Now, as we all know, the founders of all the great religions of the world not only gave an inspiration or living emotion to the rules of moral conduct which they taught, but they also inspired their immediate disciples with a feeling and emotion of unbounded admiration, love, and enthusiasm for their person and character.

" Now what I want to say of the European civilisation is that it is, as Mr. Berenson says of European art, a battlefield for divided interests; a continuous warfare for the divided interests of science and art on the one hand, and of religion and philosophy on the other; in fact a terrible battlefield where the head and the heart_the soul and the intellect_come into constant conflict.

The whole life of Chinaman is a life of feeling_not feeling in the sense of sensation which comes from the bodily organs, nor feeling in the sense of passions which flow, as you would say, from the nervous system, but feeling in the sense of emotion or human affection which comes from the deepest part of our nature_the heart or soul.

It is something in the domesticated animal which we recognise as distinctively human.

The subject of our paper I have called "The Spirit of the Chinese people."! do not mean here merely to speak of the character or characteristics of the Chinese people.

In short, it is this combination of fraud and force, Jesuitism and Militarism, lawyer and policeman, which has produced Anarchists and Anarchism in modem society, this combination of force and fraud outraging the moral sense in man and producing madness which makes the Anarchist throw bomb and dynamite against the lawyer, politician, magistrate and president of a republic.

Take a man of the lowest class of the population in China and, I think, you will agree with me that there is less of animality in him, less of the wild animal, of what the Germans call Rohheit, than you will find in a man of the same class in a European society.

The subject of our paper I have called "The Spirit of the Chinese people."! do not mean here merely to speak of the character or characteristics of the Chinese people.

Matthew Arnold says:_"The poetry of medieval Christainity lived by the heart and imagination."

But Confucianism does more than this; Confucianism teaches a man to be a good citizen.

Now, as we all know, the founders of all the great religions of the world not only gave an inspiration or living emotion to the rules of moral conduct which they taught, but they also inspired their immediate disciples with a feeling and emotion of unbounded admiration, love, and enthusiasm for their person and character.

In fact, as an English poet says, the burden of the mystery of the universe weighs upon them.

The real Church_of which the School is but an adjunct_the real and true Church of the State Religion of Confucius in China, is the Family with its ancestral tablet or chapel in every house, and its ancestral Hall or Temple in every village and town.

Now, the founders of all the great religions in the world, as we know, were all of them men of exceptionally or even abnormally strong emotional nature.

When you analyse this quality of inexpressible gentleness in the real Chinaman, you will find that it is the the product of a combination of two things, namely, sympathy and intelligence.

A thorough-bred Arab horse understands his English master not because he has studied English grammar nor because he has an instinct for the English language, but because he loves and is attached to his master.

Now in the feudal age before Confucius' time, with its semi-patriarchal order of Society and form of Government, when the State was more or less a family, the poeple did not feel so much the need of having a clear and firm basis for the duty which they owe to the Head of the State, because, as they were all members of one clan or family, the tie of kinship or natural affection already, in a way, bound them to the Head of the State, who was also the senior member of their clan or family.

Let me first of all tell you that there is, it seems to me, one great fundamental difference between the Chinese civilisation and the civilisation of modern Europ.

But the lawyer, magistrate or president of a republic_how does he make the policeman do his duty?

The Spirit of the Chinese People, I want to tell you, is a state of mind, a temper of the soul, which you cannot learn as you learn shorthand or Esperanto_in short, a mood, or in the words of the poet, a serene and blessed mood.

As by the sacrament of marriage established by the Family Religion the wife is bound to be absolutely loyal to her husband, so by ihis sacrament of the contract of allegiance called ming fen ta yi, or Code of Honour established by the State religion taught by Confucius in China, the people of China are bound to be absolutely loyal to the Emperor.

I will only ask you to suspend your judgment until you have heard what I have further to say.

Some of you may have personally known an old friend and colleague of mine in Wuchang_known him when he was Minister of the Foreign Office here in Peking_Mr. Liang Tun-yen, Mr. Liang told me, when he first received the appointment of the Customs Taotai of Hankow, that what made him wish and strive to become a great mandarin, to wear the red button, and what gave him pleasure then in receiving this appointment, was not because he cared for the red button, not because he would henceforth be ric...

But the lawyer, magistrate or president of a republic_how does he make the policeman do his duty?

Reason, our reasoning power, therefore, enables us to see in moral relations only the definable properties and qualities, the mores, the morality, as it is rightly called, the outward manner and dead form, the body, so to speak, of right and wrong, or justice.

A thorough-bred Arab horse understands his English master not because he has studied English grammar nor because he has an instinct for the English language, but because he loves and is attached to his master.

Now when we speak of religion in its broad universal sense, we mean generally a system of teachings with rules of conduct which, as Goethe says, is accepted as true and binding by the mass of mankind, or at least, by the mass of the population in a people or nation.

This Divine or absolute duty of loyalty to the Emperor in China which Confucius taught derives its sanction, not as the theory of the Divine right of kings in Europe derives its sanction from the authority of a supernatural Being called God or from some abstruse philosophy, but from the law of the gentleman_the sense of honour in man, the same sense of honour which in all countries makes the wife loyal to her husband.

Some of you may have personally known an old friend and colleague of mine in Wuchang_known him when he was Minister of the Foreign Office here in Peking_Mr. Liang Tun-yen, Mr. Liang told me, when he first received the appointment of the Customs Taotai of Hankow, that what made him wish and strive to become a great mandarin, to wear the red button, and what gave him pleasure then in receiving this appointment, was not because he cared for the red button, not because he would henceforth be ric...

Confucius taught this State religion in a book which he wrote in the very last days of his life, a book to which he gave the name of Ch'un c/i'im(^^, Spring and Autumn.

But the function, the true function of the Church in all the great religions of the world, is not to teach morality, but to teach religion, which, as I have shown you, is not a dead square rule such as "Thou shalt not lie" and" Thou shalt not steal," but an inspiration, a living emotion to make men obey those rules.

Well, as an architect who sees his house on fire, burning and falling over his head, and is convinced that he cannot possibly save the building, knows that the only thing for him to do is- to save the drawings and plans of the building so that it may afterwards be built again; so Confucius, seeing the inevitable destruction of the building of the Chinese civilisation which he conid not prevent, thought he would save the drawings and plans, and he accordingly saved the drawings and plans of t...

But for the mass of mankind who are not poets, artists, philosophers or men of science; for the mass of mankind whose lives are full of hardships and who are exposed every moment to the shock of accident from the threatening forces of Nature and the cruel merciless passions of their fellow-men, what is it that can lighten for them the

"burden of the mystery of all this unintelligible world?"

But to return from the digression, I say, a society without the sense of honour cannot be held together, cannot last.

Until men understand something of the nature, law, purpose and aim of the things which they see in the universe, they are like children in a dark room who feel the danger, insecurity and uncertainty of everything.

Here let me quote an admirable saying of a famous living art critic, Mr. Bernard Berenson.

But you will say that the merchant who repudiates his contract can be taken to the law-court.

Now in the feudal age before Confucius' time, with its semi-patriarchal order of Society and form of Government, when the State was more or less a family, the poeple did not feel so much the need of having a clear and firm basis for the duty which they owe to the Head of the State, because, as they were all members of one clan or family, the tie of kinship or natural affection already, in a way, bound them to the Head of the State, who was also the senior member of their clan or family.

Now we have got, I think, a clue to the secret of sympathy in the Chinese people_the power of sympathy which gives to the real Chinaman that sympathetic or true human intelligence, making him so inexpressibly gentle.

Religion, I say, lightens this burden by giving the mass of mankind a sense of security and a sense of permanence.

The real Chinaman may be coarse, but there is no grossness in his coarseness.

The value of religion, of all the great religions in the world, is that they have an organisation for awakening, exciting, and kindling the inspiration or living emotion in men necessary to make them obey the rules of moral conduct.

Indeed the very physical and moral imperfections of a real Chinaman are, if not redeemed, at least softened by this quality of gentleness in him.

The Moral Law when refined and put into proper order is what we call Religion.

But for the mass of mankind who are not poets, artists, philosophers or men of science; for the mass of mankind whose lives are full of hardships and who are exposed every moment to the shock of accident from the threatening forces of Nature and the cruel merciless passions of their fellow-men, what is it that can lighten for them the

"burden of the mystery of all this unintelligible world?"

It is this fraud, this Jesuitism of the public men in modem society, who say and act on the principle that there is no morality, no sense of honour in politics and yet plausibly talk of the good of society and the good of the country; it is this Jesuitism which, as Carlyle says, gives rise to "the widespread suffering, mutiny, delirium, the hot rage of sansculottic insurrections, the cold rage of resuscitated tyrannies, brutal degradation of the millions, the pampered frivolity of the...

But then it is important you should remember that this nation of children, who live a life of the heart, who are so primitive in many of their ways, have yet a power of mind and rationality which you do not find in a primitive people, a power of mind and rationality which has enabled them to deal with the complex and difficult problems of social life, government and civilisation with a success which, I will venture to say here, the ancient and modern nations of Europe have not been able to <...

It is this fact which has made sceptics like Voltaire and Tom Paine in the last century, and rationalists like Sir Hiram Maxim today, say, that the belief in God is a fraud or imposture invented by the founders of religion and kept up by priests.

I will here venture to give you an explanation_a hypothesis, if you like to call it so_of the secret of this power of sympathy in the Chinese people and my explanation is this.

There is an indescribable something in the Chinese people which, in spite of their want of habits of cleanliness and refinement, in spite of their many defects of mind and character, makes foreigners like them as foreigners like no other people.

Let us see whether with this clue that the Chinese people live a life of the heart we can explain not only detached facts such as the two illustrations I have given above, but also general characteristics which we see in the actual life of the Chinese people.

Sir Robert K. Douglas, Professor of Chinese in the London University, in his study of Confucianism, says:_"Upwards of forty generations of Chinamen have been absolutely subjected to the dicta of one man.

The temples, rites and ceremonies of Taoism and Buddhism in China are more objects of recreation than of edification; they touch the aesthetic sense, so to speak, of the Chinese people rather than their moral or religious sense; in fact, they appeal more to their imagination than to their heart or soul.

The Spirit of the Chinese People, I want to tell you, is a state of mind, a temper of the soul, which you cannot learn as you learn shorthand or Esperanto_in short, a mood, or in the words of the poet, a serene and blessed mood.

"

Matthew Arnold calls the poetry of the best Greek poets the priestess of imaginative reason.

In fact the politeness of the Japanese is like a flower without fragrance, whereas the politeness of a really polite Chinese has a perfume like the aroma of a precious ointment_instar unguenti fra-grantis_ which comes from the heart.

Therefore, Christ said: "Except your righteousness (or morality) exceed the righteousness (or morality) of the Scribes and Pharisees (ie., philosopher and moralist) ye shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Indeed, as Matthew Arnold says:

"Moral rules, apprehended as ideas first, and then rigorously followed as laws are and must be for the sage only.

All the words of really great men in literature, especially poets, have also this inspiration or living emotion that is in religion.

In the same way, I say, it is the possession of this sympathetic and true human intelligence, which gives to the Chinese type of humanity, to the real Chinaman, his inexpressible gentleness.

There is an indescribable something in the Chinese people which, in spite of their want of habits of cleanliness and refinement, in spite of their many defects of mind and character, makes foreigners like them as foreigners like no other people.

The truth of the matter is, _the reason why the Chinese people do not feel the need of religion is because they have in Confucianism a system of philosophy and ethics, a synthesis of human society and civilisation which can take the place of religion.

Mr. Froude says: "Many a hundred sermons have I heard in England on the mysteries of the faith, on the divine mission of the clergy, on apostolic succession, etc., but never one that I can recollect on common honesty, on those primitive commandments, 'Thou shalt not lie' and 'Thou shalt not steal.

Instead, therefore, of saying that the Chinese are a people of arrested development, one ought rather to say that the Chinese are a people who never grow old.

In other words, Confucius gave a new, wider and more comprehensive application to the law of the gentleman in the State religion which he taught; and as the Family religion, or Religion of the Old Dispensation in China before his time instituted the sacrament of marriage, Confucius, in giving this new, wider, and more comprehensive application to the law of the gentleman in the State religion which he taught, instituted a new sacrament.

Again, as the absolute Divine duty of loyalty taught by Confucius secures the immortality of the race in the nation, so the cult of ancestor-worship taught in Confucianism secures the immortality of the race in the family.

I translated them as the Great Principle of Honour and Duty.

Chinese characteristics have often been described before, but I think you will agree with me that such description or enumeration of the characteristics of the Chinese people hitherto have given us no picture at all of the inner being of the Chinaman.

This indescribable something which I have defined as gentleness, softens and mitigates, if it does not redeem, the physical and moral defects of the Chinese in the hearts of foreigners.

"Whether we provide for action or conversation, " says Dr. Johnson. "whether we wish to be useful or pleasing, the first requisite is the religious and moral knowledge of right and wrong; the next, an acquaintance with the history of mankind and with those examples which may be said to embody truth and prove by events the reasonableness of opinions.

Mencius said:_"When Confucius completed his Spring and Autumn Annals"_the book in which he taught the State religion of his _and in which he showed that the society of his time_in which there was then, as in the world to-day, no sense of honour in public men and no morality in politics_was doomed; when Confucius wrote that book, "the Jesuits and anarchists (lit. bandits) of his time, became afraid."

The merchants again_unless merchants recognise and feel themselves bound by the sense of honour to fulfil their contracts, all trading would become impossible.

In fact, as an English poet says, the burden of the mystery of the universe weighs upon them.

This undefined and unwritten code of the law of the gentleman in China before Confucius' time was known as li (U) the law of propriety, good taste or good manners.

In short it is a happy union of soul with intellect.

Confucius gave the name of Spring and Autumn to this book because the object of the book is to give the real moral causes which govern the rise and fall_the Spring and Autumn of nations.

The subject of our paper I have called "The Spirit of the Chinese people."! do not mean here merely to speak of the character or characteristics of the Chinese people.

"Now where and how did mankind come to discover this secret?

But if tables of statistics and the pure abstract sciences fill the Chinese with aversion, the physical sciences as they are now pursued in Europe, which require you to cut up and mutilate the body of a living animal in order to verify a scientific theory, would inspire the Chinese with repugnance and horror.

Now, in answer to your question I am going to tell you that the system of the teachings of Confucius, called Confucianism, the State Mencius, speaking of the two purest and most Christlike characters in Chinese history, said: "When men heard of the spirit and temper of Po-yi and Shu-ch*i, the dissolute ruffian became unselfish and the cowardly man had courage.

The reason, I say, is because children and uneducated persons think and speak with the language of the heart, whereas educated men, especially men with the modern intellectual education of Europe, think and speak with the language of the head or intellect.

But instead of saying that the Chinese have no religion, it is perhaps more correct to say that the Chinese do not want_do not feel the need of religion.

Now what is this inspiration or living emotion in Religion, the paramount virtue of Religion upon which, as I said.

Indeed the very physical and moral imperfections of a real Chinaman are, if not redeemed, at least softened by this quality of gentleness in him.

Matthew Arnold says:_"The poetry of later Paganism lived by the senses and understanding: the poetry of medieval Christianity lived by the heart and imagination.

Wordsworth in his lines on Tintern Abbey says:_

"... nor less, I trust To them I may have owed another gift Of aspect more sublime: that blessed mood In which the burthen of the mystery, In which the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world, Is lightened:_that serene and blessed mood In which the affections gently lead us on, _

Until, the breath of this corporeal frame And even motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and become ...

In short the wonderful peculiarity of the Chinese people as a race, is that they possess the secret of perpetual youth.

" St. Paul says:_"Let every man that names the name of Christ depart from iniquity.

The Christian answers the words of his Catechism by saying:" The chief end of man is to glorify God.

The Chinese people in Confucius' s time found themselves with an immense system of institutions, established facts, accredited dogmas, customs, laws_in fact, an immense system of society and civilisation which had come down to them from their venerated ancestors.

The real Church_of which the School is but an adjunct_the real and true Church of the State Religion of Confucius in China, is the Family with its ancestral tablet or chapel in every house, and its ancestral Hall or Temple in every village and town.

Now the awakening of this sense in the Chinese people ,years ago was the awakening of what in Europe to-day is called the modern spirit_the spirit of liberalism, the spirit of enquiry, to find out the why and the wherefore of things.

But what I mean by the spirit of the Chinese people, is the spirit by which the Chinese people live, something constitutionally distinctive in the mind, temper and sentiment of the Chinese people which distinguishes them from all other people, especially from those of modem Europe and America.

Love includes all true human affection, the feelings of affection between parents and children as well as the emotion of love and kindness, pity, compassion, mercy towards all creatures; in fact, all true human emotions contained in that Chinese word Jen('\~H), for which the nearest equivalent in the European languages is, in the old dialect of Christianity, godliness, because it is the most godlike quality in man, and in modern dialect, humanity, love of humanity, or, in one word, love.

Mr. Froude says: "Many a hundred sermons have I heard in England on the mysteries of the faith, on the divine mission of the clergy, on apostolic succession, etc., but never one that I can recollect on common honesty, on those primitive commandments, 'Thou shalt not lie' and 'Thou shalt not steal.

In fact, for everything which does not engage the heart and feelings, such as tables of statistics, the Chinese have a dislike amounting to aversion.

But if the life of religion is the law of the gentleman, the soul of religion, the source of inspiration in religion, _is Love.

If you ask a conscientious Mohammedan why he believes in God and obeys the rules of moral conduct, he will rightly answer you that he does it because he believes in Mohammed the Prophet.

Indeed I may say here that the real Chinaman lives so much a life of emotion or human affection, a life of the soul, that he may be said sometimes to neglect more than he ought to do, even the necessary requirements of the life of the senses of a man living in this world composed of body and soul.

In fact the politeness of the Japanese is like a flower without fragrance, whereas the politeness of a really polite Chinese has a perfume like the aroma of a precious ointment_instar unguenti fra-grantis_ which comes from the heart.

Indeed I may say here that the real Chinaman lives so much a life of emotion or human affection, a life of the soul, that he may be said sometimes to neglect more than he ought to do, even the necessary requirements of the life of the senses of a man living in this world composed of body and soul.

The Spirit of the Chinese People is not even what you would call a mentality_ an active working of the brain and mind.

In other words, the wonderful peculiarity of the Chinese is that for a people, who have lived so long as a grown-up nation, as a nation of adult reason, they are yet able to this day to live the life of a child_a life of the heart.

In Europe politics is a science, but in China, since, Confucius' time, politics is a religion.

It secured once for all the stability and permanence of the family in China.

Thus the lawyer, politician, magistrate or president of a republic, although they talk of the good of society and the good of the country, really depend upon the policeman' s unconscious sense of honour which not only makes him do his duty, but also makes him respect the right of property and be satisfied with fifteen shillings a week, while the lawyer, politician and president of a republic receive an income of twenty thousand pounds a year.

A thorough-bred Arab horse understands his English master not because he has studied English grammar nor because he has an instinct for the English language, but because he loves and is attached to his master.

For I want to tell you and you will understand it from what I have told you, that a Chinaman, especially if he is an educated man, who knowingly forgets, gives up or throws away the Code of Honour, the Ming fen ta yi in the State Religion of Confucius in China, Which teaches the absolute Divine Duty of Loyalty to the Emperor or Sovereign to whom he has once given his alle-giance, such a Chinaman is a man who has lost the spirit of the Chinese people, the spirit of his nation and race:...

This gentleness again is, as I have tried to show you, the product of what I call sympathetic or true human intelligence_an intelligence which comes not from reasoning nor from instinct, but from sympathy_from the power of sympathy.

In modem times the lawyer, politician, magistrate and president of a republic tell the policeman that he must do his duty, because it is for the good of society and for the good of his country; and that the good of society means that he, the policeman, can get his pay regularly, without which he and his family would die of starvation.

The whole life of Chinaman is a life of feeling_not feeling in the sense of sensation which comes from the bodily organs, nor feeling in the sense of passions which flow, as you would say, from the nervous system, but feeling in the sense of emotion or human affection which comes from the deepest part of our nature_the heart or soul.

The secret is: the Chinese remember things with the heart and not with the head.

The Chinese, as you all know, have made little or no progress not only in the physical, but also in the pure abstract sciences such as mathematics, logic and metaphysics.

A Scotch friend of mine in the Customs told me he once had a Chinese servant who was a perfect scamp, who lied, who "squeezed, " and who was always gambling, but when my friend fell ill with typhoid fever in an out-of-the-way port where he had no foreign friend to attend to him, this awful scamp of a Chinese servant nursed him with a care and devotion which he could not have expected from an intimate friend or near relation.

In the first teacher and founder of their religion who, in Mo-hammedanism is called the Prophet and in Christianity the Mediator.

" * Thus, according to Confucius, the difference between Religion and moral law_the moral law of the philosopher and moralist_is that Religion is a refined and well ordered moral law, a deeper or higher standard of moral law.

But then what gave, what inspired the man and woman to have this fine feeling, this good taste or sense of honour which made them see the soul of justice called Honour?

With the idea of a future life still unawakened, a plain, matter-of-fact system of morality, such as that enunciated by Confucius, was sufficient for all the wants of the Chinese.

There is an indescribable something in the Chinese people which, in spite of their want of habits of cleanliness and refinement, in spite of their many defects of mind and character, makes foreigners like them as foreigners like no other people.

The real Chinaman may be vulgar, but there is no aggressiveness, no blatancy in his vulgarity.

Neither does it come to him from instinct, such as the intelligence of the fox, _ the vulpine intelligence which knows where eatable chickens are to be found.

When you analyse this quality of inexpressible gentleness in the real Chinaman, you will find that it is the the product of a combination of two things, namely, sympathy and intelligence.

Now in the feudal age before Confucius' time, with its semi-patriarchal order of Society and form of Government, when the State was more or less a family, the poeple did not feel so much the need of having a clear and firm basis for the duty which they owe to the Head of the State, because, as they were all members of one clan or family, the tie of kinship or natural affection already, in a way, bound them to the Head of the State, who was also the senior member of their clan or family.

But what I mean by the spirit of the Chinese people, is the spirit by which the Chinese people live, something constitutionally distinctive in the mind, temper and sentiment of the Chinese people which distinguishes them from all other people, especially from those of modem Europe and America.

I say it is fraud, because the good of the country, which for the policeman means fifteen shillings a week, which barely keeps him and his family from starvation, means for the lawyer, politician, magistrate and president of a republic ten to twenty thousand pounds a year, with a fine house, electric light, motor cars and all the comforts and luxuries which the life blood labour of ten thousands of men has to supply him.

But if tables of statistics and the pure abstract sciences fill the Chinese with aversion, the physical sciences as they are now pursued in Europe, which require you to cut up and mutilate the body of a living animal in order to verify a scientific theory, would inspire the Chinese with repugnance and horror.

Matthew Arnold says:_"The poetry of medieval Christainity lived by the heart and imagination."

In other words Religion tells us in obeying the law of our being we must obey the true law of our being, not the animal or carnal law of our being called by St. Paul the law of the mind of the flesh, and very well defined by the famous disciple of Auguste Comte, Monsieur Littre, as the law of self preservation and reproduction; but the true law of our being called by St. Paul the law of the mind of the Spirit, and defined by Confucius as the law of the gentleman.

But, like Religion, the law of the gentleman of Confucius tells us we must obey the true law of our being, not the law of being of the average man in the street or of the vulgar and impure person, but the law of being of what Emerson calls "the simplest and purest minds" in the world.

I once read somewhere a statement made by a foreigner who had lived in both countries, that the longer a foreigner lives in Japan the more he dislikes the Japanese, whereas the longer a foreigner lives in China the more he likes the Chinese.

It is this fact which has made superficial foreign students of China think that the Chinese have made no progress in their civilisation and that the Chinese civilisation is a stagnant one.

Ill, Part II, IX, religion in China, like the Church religion in other countries, makes men obey the rules of moral conduct also by means of an organisation corresponding to the Church of the Church religion in other countries.

Now the above are a few simple facts connected with the life of the Chinese people which anyone, even without any knowledge of Chinese, can observe and understand, and by examining these facts, I think, I have made good my hypothesis that the Chinese people live a life of the heart.

It is for this reason that the Chinese make a special distinction between Con-fucianism and all other religions by calling the system of teaching taught by Confucius not a chiao (^_the general term in Chinese for religion with which they designate other religions, such as Buddhism, Mohammedanism and Christianity_but the ming chiao (^ ^C)_the religion of Honour.

The subject of our paper I have called "The Spirit of the Chinese people."! do not mean here merely to speak of the character or characteristics of the Chinese people.

Comparing European with Oriental art, Mr. Berenson says:_"Our European art has the fatal tendency to become science and we hardly possess a masterpiece which does not bear the marks of having heen a battlefield for divided interests.

But if tables of statistics and the pure abstract sciences fill the Chinese with aversion, the physical sciences as they are now pursued in Europe, which require you to cut up and mutilate the body of a living animal in order to verify a scientific theory, would inspire the Chinese with repugnance and horror.

The Chinese are polite because, living a life of the heart, they know their own feelings and that makes it easy for them to show consideration for the feelings of others.

Indeed I may say here that the real Chinaman lives so much a life of emotion or human affection, a life of the soul, that he may be said sometimes to neglect more than he ought to do, even the necessary requirements of the life of the senses of a man living in this world composed of body and soul.

When you analyse this quality of inexpressible gentleness in the real Chinaman, you will find that it is the the product of a combination of two things, namely, sympathy and intelligence.

In fact, like the great Goethe in modern Europe, the great Goethe whom the people of Europe will one day recognise as the most perfect type of humanity, the real European which the civilisation of Europe has produced, as the Chinese have acknowledged Confucius to be the most perfect type of humanity, the real Chinaman, which the Chinese civilisation has produced_like the great Goethe, I say, Confucius was too educated and cultured a man to belong to the class of men called founders of...

It is very difficult to write or draw with it, but when you have once mastered the use of it, you will, with it, write and draw with a beauty and grace which you cannot do with a hard steel pen.

In a way Confucius in this book taught the divine right of kings.

It is for this reason that the Chinese make a special distinction between Con-fucianism and all other religions by calling the system of teaching taught by Confucius not a chiao (^_the general term in Chinese for religion with which they designate other religions, such as Buddhism, Mohammedanism and Christianity_but the ming chiao (^ ^C)_the religion of Honour.

It is thus given by an Englishman.

When I say religion here, I mean religion, not in the narrow European sense of the word, but in the broad universal sense.

I say it is fraud because without the recognition of a sense of honour_the sense of honour which makes the gambler pay the last penny in his pocket to the player who wins from him, without this sense of honour, all transfer and possession of property which makes the inequality of the rich and poor in society, as well as the transfer of money on a gambling table, has no justification whatever and no binding force.

Let me here, first of all, give you two illustrations of what I mean by living a life of the heart.

Indeed the very physical and moral imperfections of a real Chinaman are, if not redeemed, at least softened by this quality of gentleness in him.

The Chinese, as you all know, have made little or no progress not only in the physical, but also in the pure abstract sciences such as mathematics, logic and metaphysics.

The Chinese are, it has often been remarked, a peculiarly polite people.

A thorough-bred Arab horse understands his English master not because he has studied English grammar nor because he has an instinct for the English language, but because he loves and is attached to his master.

Now the awakening of this sense in the Chinese people ,years ago was the awakening of what in Europe to-day is called the modern spirit_the spirit of liberalism, the spirit of enquiry, to find out the why and the wherefore of things.

" Now I want you, on this subject of the divine right of kings, to remember and ponder over this saying of Carlyle.

The real Chinaman may be vulgar, but there is no aggressiveness, no blatancy in his vulgarity.

The ignoble nature of ordinary men and women of the people, too, can carry out this law of the gentleman.

Perhaps I can best express what I mean by calling the subject of our discussion the Chinese type of humanity, or, to put it in plainer and shorter words, the real Chinaman.

Now last of all I want to ask your permission to recite to you a few lines of poetry from the most Chinese of the English poets, Wordsworth, which better than anything I have said or can say, will describe to you the serene and blessed mood which is the Spirit of the Chinese People.

But for the mass of mankind who are not poets, artists, philosophers or men of science; for the mass of mankind whose lives are full of hardships and who are exposed every moment to the shock of accident from the threatening forces of Nature and the cruel merciless passions of their fellow-men, what is it that can lighten for them the

"burden of the mystery of all this unintelligible world?"

" The eyes and understanding of the foreigner in China see many defects and blemishes in the habits and in the character of the Chinese, but his heart is attracted to them, because the Chinese have a heart, or, as I said, live a life of the heart_a life of emotion or human affection.

" St. Paul says:_"Let every man that names the name of Christ depart from iniquity.

In short, it is this combination of fraud and force, Jesuitism and Militarism, lawyer and policeman, which has produced Anarchists and Anarchism in modem society, this combination of force and fraud outraging the moral sense in man and producing madness which makes the Anarchist throw bomb and dynamite against the lawyer, politician, magistrate and president of a republic.

But that is a gross and preposterous libel.

But what I mean by the spirit of the Chinese people, is the spirit by which the Chinese people live, something constitutionally distinctive in the mind, temper and sentiment of the Chinese people which distinguishes them from all other people, especially from those of modem Europe and America.

Goethe says: "Piety, (From-migkeit) i.e., the belief in God, taught by religion, is not an end in itself but only a means by which, through the complete and perfect calmness of mind and temper (Gemuethsruehe) which it gives, to attain the highest state of culture or human perfection."

The Chinese people in Confucius' s time found themselves with an immense system of institutions, established facts, accredited dogmas, customs, laws_in fact, an immense system of society and civilisation which had come down to them from their venerated ancestors.

Sir Robert K. Douglas, Professor of Chinese in the London University, in his study of Confucianism, says:_"Upwards of forty generations of Chinamen have been absolutely subjected to the dicta of one man.

Confucius, in the State religion which he now gave, taught that, as under the old dispensation of what I have called the Family religion before his time, the wife and husband in a family are bound by the sacrament of marriage, called Chou Kung Chih Li, the Law of good manners of the Duke of Chou_to hold their contract of marriage inviolable and to absolutely abide by it, so under the new dispensation of the State religion which he now gave, the people and their sovereign in every Slat...

Now, in answer to your question I am going to tell you that the system of the teachings of Confucius, called Confucianism, the State Mencius, speaking of the two purest and most Christlike characters in Chinese history, said: "When men heard of the spirit and temper of Po-yi and Shu-ch*i, the dissolute ruffian became unselfish and the cowardly man had courage.

In fact, for everything which does not engage the heart and feelings, such as tables of statistics, the Chinese have a dislike amounting to aversion.

Now in the feudal age before Confucius' time, with its semi-patriarchal order of Society and form of Government, when the State was more or less a family, the poeple did not feel so much the need of having a clear and firm basis for the duty which they owe to the Head of the State, because, as they were all members of one clan or family, the tie of kinship or natural affection already, in a way, bound them to the Head of the State, who was also the senior member of their clan or family.

Some of you may have personally known an old friend and colleague of mine in Wuchang_known him when he was Minister of the Foreign Office here in Peking_Mr. Liang Tun-yen, Mr. Liang told me, when he first received the appointment of the Customs Taotai of Hankow, that what made him wish and strive to become a great mandarin, to wear the red button, and what gave him pleasure then in receiving this appointment, was not because he cared for the red button, not because he would henceforth...

That, I am sure, you will all agree with me, is a very interesting subject, especially at the present moment, when from what we see going on around us in China today, it would seem that the Chinese type of humanity_the real Chinaman_is going to disappear and, in his place, we are going to have a new type of humanity_the progressive or modern Chinaman.

In short, a religion in the European sense of the word makes it its object to transform man into a perfect ideal man by himself, into a saint, a Buddha, an angel, whereas Confucianism limits itself to make man into a good citizen_ to live as a dutiful son and a good citizen.

I am afraid I have exhausted your patience in taking such a very long way to come to the point of what I want to say.

A Paper that was to have been read before the Oriental Society of Peking

LET me first of all explain to you what I propose, with your permission, this afternoon to discuss.

But I am not quite sure that all of you are aware of the absolute necessity of this sense of honour in men for the carrying on of every form of human society; in fact, as the proverb which says: "There must be honour even among thieves, " show_even for the carrying on of a society of thieves.

By gentleness I do not mean softness of nature or weak submissiveness.

The politeness of the Japanese, on the other hand, although elaborate, is not so pleasing, and I have heard some foreigners express their dislike of it, because it is what may be called a rehearsal politeness_a politeness learnt by heart as in a theatrical piece.

Indeed I may say here that the real Chinaman lives so much a life of emotion or human affection, a life of the soul, that he may be said sometimes to neglect more than he ought to do, even the necessary requirements of the life of the senses of a man living in this world composed of body and soul.

The reason, I say, is because children and uneducated persons think and speak with the language of the heart, whereas educated men, especially men with the modern intellectual education of Europe, think and speak with the language of the head or intellect.

In this book Confucius gave a resume of the history of a false and decadent state of society and civilisation in which he traced all the suffering and misery of that false and decadent state of society and civilisation to its real cause_to the fact that men had not a true idea of a State; no right conception of the true nature of the duty which they owe to the State, to the head of the State, their ruler and Sovereign.

The sanction for the sacrament of marriage in Europe is given by the Church and the authority for the sanction is God.

The Chinese people in Confucius' s time found themselves with an immense system of institutions, established facts, accredited dogmas, customs, laws_in fact, an immense system of society and civilisation which had come down to them from their venerated ancestors.

Nevertheless, this refuge, the belief in God, taught by religion, although illusory, an illusion, helps towards enabling men to obey the rules of moral conduct, for, as I said, the belief in God gives to men, to the mass of mankind, a sense of security and a sense of permanence in their existence.

" But the author of the book on Filial Piety(^^), written in the Han dynasty, the counterpart of the lm.ita.tio

Indeed the very physical and moral imperfections of a real Chinaman are, if not redeemed, at least softened by this quality of gentleness in him.

It is seldom that you will find a real Chinaman of the old school, even of the lowest type, who is positively repulsive.

The philosophy of Plato and Aristotle and of Herbert Spencer has not become a religion or the equivalent of a religion, the accepted faith of the masses of a people or nation, whereas Confucianism has become a religion or the equivalent of a religion to even the mass of the population in China.

In that way the policeman must sooner or later come to the conclusion that, as there is .no such thing as a sense of honour and morality in politics, there is then no earthly reason why, if he can get better pay, which means also the good of society_no reason why, instead of being a policeman, he should not become a revolutionist or anarchist- In a society when the policeman once comes to the conclusion that there is no reason why, if he can get better pay, he should not become a revolutioni...

That, I am sure, you will all agree with me, is a very interesting subject, especially at the present moment, when from what we see going on around us in China today, it would seem that the Chinese type of humanity_the real Chinaman_is going to disappear and, in his place, we are going to have a new type of humanity_the progressive or modern Chinaman.

It contains the sacred covenant, the sacred social contract by which Confucius bound the whole Chinese people and nation to be absolutely loyal to the Emperor, and this covenant or sacrament, this Code of Honour, is the one and only true Constitution not only of the State and Government in China, but also of the Chinese civilisation.

Now, as we all know, the founders of all the great religions of the world not only gave an inspiration or living emotion to the rules of moral conduct which they taught, but they also inspired their immediate disciples with a feeling and emotion of unbounded admiration, love, and enthusiasm for their person and character.

The temples, rites and ceremonies of Taoism and Buddhism in China are more objects of recreation than of edification; they touch the aesthetic sense, so to speak, of the Chinese people rather than their moral or religious sense; in fact, they appeal more to their imagination than to their heart or soul.

Now unless men when they sit down to gamble all recognise and feel themselves bound by the sense of honour to pay when a certain colour of cards or dice turns up, gambling would on the instant become impossible.

That, I say, was a great service which Confucius has done for the Chinese nation_he saved the drawings and plans of their civilisation for them.

But that is a gross and preposterous libel.

Before I answer your question, will you allow me first to point out to you a great mistake which people make in believing that it is the sanction given by the authority of God which makes men obey the rules of moral conduct.

Now unless men when they sit down to gamble all recognise and feel themselves bound by the sense of honour to pay when a certain colour of cards or dice turns up, gambling would on the instant become impossible.

This conflict of the heart and head in the new order of society and civilisation which men tried to reconstruct made the Chinese people feel dissatisfied with all civilisation, and in the agony and despair which this dissatisfaction produced, the Chinese people wanted to pull down and destroy all civilisation.

Until men understand something of the nature, law, purpose and aim of the things which they see in the universe, they are like children in a dark room who feel the danger, insecurity and uncertainty of everything.

This intense feeling or emotion of love or human affection enabled them to see what I have called the indefinable, absolute essence of right and wrong or justice, the soul of justice which they called righteousness, and this vivid perception of the absolute essence of justice enabled them to see the unity of the laws of right and wrong or moral laws.

It is this fraud, this Jesuitism of the public men in modem society, who say and act on the principle that there is no morality, no sense of honour in politics and yet plausibly talk of the good of society and the good of the country; it is this Jesuitism which, as Carlyle says, gives rise to "the widespread suffering, mutiny, delirium, the hot rage of sansculottic insurrections, the cold rage of resuscitated tyrannies, brutal degradation of the millions, the pampered frivolity of the...

The Chinese, as you all know, have made little or no progress not only in the physical, but also in the pure abstract sciences such as mathematics, logic and metaphysics.

Confucius, as some of you may know, lived in what is called a period of expansion in the history of China_a period in which the feudal age had come to an end; in which the feudal, the semi-patriarchal social order and form of government had to be expanded and reconstructed.

This sense of honour, called by Confucius the law of the gentleman, is not like the moral law of the philosopher and moralist, a dry, dead knowledge of the form or formula of right and wrong, but like the Righteousness of the Bible in Christianity, an instinctive, living, vivid perception of the indefinable, absolute essence of right and wrong or justice, the life and soul of justice called Honour.

Some of you may have personally known an old friend and colleague of mine in Wuchang_known him when he was Minister of the Foreign Office here in Peking_Mr. Liang Tun-yen, Mr. Liang told me, when he first received the appointment of the Customs Taotai of Hankow, that what made him wish and strive to become a great mandarin, to wear the red button, and what gave him pleasure then in receiving this appointment, was not because he cared for the red button, not because he would henceforth...

"

That l_amed English professor is right, when he says that the Chinese people do not feel the need of religion, because they have the teachings of Confucius, but he is altogether wrong, when he asserts that the Chinese people do not feel the need of religion because the Mongolian mind is phlegmatic and unspeculative.

But Confucius, who also saw the suffering and misery of the then state of society and civilisation, thought he recognised the evil was not in the nature and constitution of society and civilisation, but in the wrong track which society and civilisation had taken, in the wrong basis which men had taken for the foundation of society and civilisation.

Nevertheless, it must be admitted that, as far as pure intellectual life goes, the Chinese are, to a certain extent, a people of arrested development.

It is not like the head or intellect, a hard, stiff, rigid instrument.

In this book Confucius gave a resume of the history of a false and decadent state of society and civilisation in which he traced all the suffering and misery of that false and decadent state of society and civilisation to its real cause_to the fact that men had not a true idea of a State; no right conception of the true nature of the duty which they owe to the State, to the head of the State, their ruler and Sovereign.

When I say religion here, I mean religion, not in the narrow European sense of the word, but in the broad universal sense.

I say it is fraud because without the recognition of a sense of honour_the sense of honour which makes the gambler pay the last penny in his pocket to the player who wins from him, without this sense of honour, all transfer and possession of property which makes the inequality of the rich and poor in society, as well as the transfer of money on a gambling table, has no justification whatever and no binding force.

The temples, rites and ceremonies of Taoism and Buddhism in China are more objects of recreation than of edification; they touch the aesthetic sense, so to speak, of the Chinese people rather than their moral or religious sense; in fact, they appeal more to their imagination than to their heart or soul.

But if tables of statistics and the pure abstract sciences fill the Chinese with aversion, the physical sciences as they are now pursued in Europe, which require you to cut up and mutilate the body of a living animal in order to verify a scientific theory, would inspire the Chinese with repugnance and horror.

But now before I finally conclude, I want to give you a warning.

The first Article of Faith in this State Religion is Ming fen ta yi_the Principle of Honour and Duty_which may thus be called: A Code of Honour.

In fact, the one word, it seems to me, which will sum up the impression which the Chinese type of humanity makes upon you is the English word "gentle."

Besides, the law-court_how can the law-court make the defaulting merchant fulfil his contract?

I will here venture to give you an explanation_a hypothesis, if you like to call it so_of the secret of this power of sympathy in the Chinese people and my explanation is this.

The real Chinaman may be stupid, but there is no absurdity in his stupidity.

Intact, the three Articles of Faith, called in Chinese the san kang, three cardinal duties in Con-fucianism or the State religion of China, are, in their order of importance_first, absolute duty of loyalty to the Emperor; second, filial piety and ancestor-worship; third, inviolability of marriage and absolute submission of the wife to the husband.

The Chinese, like children who live a life of the heart, have no taste for the abstract sciences, because in these the heart and feelings are not engaged.

The Chinese, it is well-known, have wonderful memories.

In this way, I say, religion lightens for the mass of mankind who are not poets, artists, philosophers or scientific men, the burden of the mystery of all this unintelligible world, by giving them a sense of security and a sense of permanence in their existence.

It is this fact which has made sceptics like Voltaire and Tom Paine in the last century, and rationalists like Sir Hiram Maxim today, say, that the belief in God is a fraud or imposture invented by the founders of religion and kept up by priests.

Now the above are a few simple facts connected with the life of the Chinese people which anyone, even without any knowledge of Chinese, can observe and understand, and by examining these facts, I think, I have made good my hypothesis that the Chinese people live a life of the heart.

The temples, rites and ceremonies of Taoism and Buddhism in China are more objects of recreation than of edification; they touch the aesthetic sense, so to speak, of the Chinese people rather than their moral or religious sense; in fact, they appeal more to their imagination than to their heart or soul.

This conflict of the heart and head in the new order of society and civilisation which men tried to reconstruct made the Chinese people feel dissatisfied with all civilisation, and in the agony and despair which this dissatisfaction produced, the Chinese people wanted to pull down and destroy all civilisation.

Comparing European with Oriental art, Mr. Berenson says:_"Our European art has the fatal tendency to become science and we hardly possess a masterpiece which does not bear the marks of having heen a battlefield for divided interests.

It contains the sacred covenant, the sacred social contract by which Confucius bound the whole Chinese people and nation to be absolutely loyal to the Emperor, and this covenant or sacrament, this Code of Honour, is the one and only true Constitution not only of the State and Government in China, but also of the Chinese civilisation.

I will not argue the point with you here.

As it is said of the Kingdom of Heaven, so it may also be said of the Chinese language:_"Unless you become as little children, you cannot learn it.

Using a term which is applied to animals, we may say of the real Chinaman that he is a domesticated creature.

It is this fraud, this Jesuitism of the public men in modem society, who say and act on the principle that there is no morality, no sense of honour in politics and yet plausibly talk of the good of society and the good of the country; it is this Jesuitism which, as Carlyle says, gives rise to "the widespread suffering, mutiny, delirium, the hot rage of sansculottic insurrections, the cold rage of resuscitated tyrannies, brutal degradation of the millions, the pampered frivolity of the...

But for the mass of mankind who are not poets, artists, philosophers or men of science; for the mass of mankind whose lives are full of hardships and who are exposed every moment to the shock of accident from the threatening forces of Nature and the cruel merciless passions of their fellow-men, what is it that can lighten for them the

"burden of the mystery of all this unintelligible world?"

In other words, Confucius gave a new, wider and more comprehensive application to the law of the gentleman in the State religion which he taught; and as the Family religion, or Religion of the Old Dispensation in China before his time instituted the sacrament of marriage, Confucius, in giving this new, wider, and more comprehensive application to the law of the gentleman in the State religion which he taught, instituted a new sacrament.

" It is for this reason that the philosophy and morality taught by Plato, Aristotle and Herbert Spencer have a value only for scholars.

Chinese characteristics have often been described before, but I think you will agree with me that such description or enumeration of the characteristics of the Chinese people hitherto have given us no picture at all of the inner being of the Chinaman.

But I am not quite sure that all of you are aware of the absolute necessity of this sense of honour in men for the carrying on of every form of human society; in fact, as the proverb which says: "There must be honour even among thieves, " show_even for the carrying on of a society of thieves.

But then it is important you should remember that this nation of children, who live a life of the heart, who are so primitive in many of their ways, have yet a power of mind and rationality which you do not find in a primitive people, a power of mind and rationality which has enabled them to deal with the complex and difficult problems of social life, government and civilisation with a success which, I will venture to say here, the ancient and modern nations of Europe have not been ab...

In fact, the one word, it seems to me, which will sum up the impression which the Chinese type of humanity makes upon you is the English word "gentle."

Again the term chum tzu chih too (^ ^.$lM) in the teachings of Confucius, translated by Dr. Legge as "the way of the superior man, " for which the nearest equivalent in the European languages is moral law_means literally, the way_the Law of the Gentleman.

There is, of course, the difference that the one has a supernatural origin and element in it, whereas the other has not.

Now the above are a few simple facts connected with the life of the Chinese people which anyone, even without any knowledge of Chinese, can observe and understand, and by examining these facts, I think, I have made good my hypothesis that the Chinese people live a life of the heart.

Let us next take another generally admitted fact in the life of the Chinese people_their politeness.

The temples, rites and ceremonies of Taoism and Buddhism in China are more objects of recreation than of edification; they touch the aesthetic sense, so to speak, of the Chinese people rather than their moral or religious sense; in fact, they appeal more to their imagination than to their heart or soul.

In this system their life had to be carried forward; yet they began to feel_they had a sense that this system was not of their creation, that it by no means corresponded with the wants of their actual life; that, for them, it was customary, not rational.

Some of you may have personally known an old friend and colleague of mine in Wuchang_known him when he was Minister of the Foreign Office here in Peking_Mr. Liang Tun-yen, Mr. Liang told me, when he first received the appointment of the Customs Taotai of Hankow, that what made him wish and strive to become a great mandarin, to wear the red button, and what gave him pleasure then in receiving this appointment, was not because he cared for the red button, not because he would henceforth...

Therefore philosophers, like Spinoza, "for whom, " it has been said, "the crown of the intellectual life is a transport, as for the saint the crown of the religious life is a transport," do not feel the need of religion.

But then, as the Wise Man in the Hebrew Bible says, there are many devices in a man's heart.

The politeness of the Chinese, although not elaborate like the politeness of the Japanese, is pleasing because it is, as the French beautifully express it, la politesse du coeur, the politeness of the heart.

Martin Luther says admirably in his commentary on the Book of Daniel: "A God is simply that where-on the human heart rests with trust, faith, hope and love.

A Chinese, when he dies, is not consoled by the belief that he will live a life hereafter, but by the belief that his children, grandchildren, great-grand-children, all those dearest to him, will remember him, think of him, love him, to the end of time, and in that way, in his imagination, dying, to a Chinese, is like going on a long, long journey, if not with the hope, at least with a great "perhaps" of meeting again.

Now the first thing, I think, which will strike you in the old Chinese type of humanity is that there is nothing wild, savage or ferocious in him.

It is consideration for the feelings of others.

Men, like Laotzu, then in China as men like Tolstoy in Europe to-day, seeing the misery and suffering resulting from the conflict between the heart and the head, thought they saw something radically wrong in the very nature and constitution of society and civilisation.

Men, like Laotzu, then in China as men like Tolstoy in Europe to-day, seeing the misery and suffering resulting from the conflict between the heart and the head, thought they saw something radically wrong in the very nature and constitution of society and civilisation.

That is the true explanation of the insensibility of the Chinese to the physical discomforts of unclean surroundings and want of refinement.

Let me first of all tell you that there is, it seems to me, one great fundamental difference between the Chinese civilisation and the civilisation of modern Europ.

In other words Religion tells us in obeying the law of our being we must obey the true law of our being, not the animal or carnal law of our being called by St. Paul the law of the mind of the flesh, and very well defined by the famous disciple of Auguste Comte, Monsieur Littre, as the law of self preservation and reproduction; but the true law of our being called by St. Paul the law of the mind of the Spirit, and defined by Confucius as the law of the gentleman.

A Paper that was to have been read before the Oriental Society of Peking

LET me first of all explain to you what I propose, with your permission, this afternoon to discuss.

Now, this absolute Divine duty of loyalty to the Emperor of every man, woman, and child in the whole Chinese Empire gives, as you can understand, in the minds of the Chinese population, an absolute, supreme, transcendent, almighty power to the Emperor; and this belief in the absolute, supreme, transcendent, almighty power of the Emperor it is which gives to the Chinese people, to the mass of the population in China, the same sense of security which the belief in God in religion gives ...

A Scotch friend of mine in the Customs told me he once had a Chinese servant who was a perfect scamp, who lied, who "squeezed, " and who was always gambling, but when my friend fell ill with typhoid fever in an out-of-the-way port where he had no foreign friend to attend to him, this awful scamp of a Chinese servant nursed him with a care and devotion which he could not have expected from an intimate friend or near relation.

It is the possession of this human quality which distinguishes domesticated from wild animals.

The greatest service he did was that, in saving the drawings and plans of their civilisation, he made a new synthesis, a new interpretation of the plans of that civilisation, and in that new synthesis he gave the Chinese people the true idea of a State_a true, rational, permanent, absolute basis of a State.

But what is distinctively human as distinguished from what is animal?

But for the mass of mankind who are not poets, artists, philosophers or men of science; for the mass of mankind whose lives are full of hardships and who are exposed every moment to the shock of accident from the threatening forces of Nature and the cruel merciless passions of their fellow-men, what is it that can lighten for them the

"burden of the mystery of all this unintelligible world?"

The real Chinaman may be cunning, but there is no deep malignity in his cunning.

The Mongolian mind being eminently phlegmatic and. unspeculative, naturally rebels against the idea of investigating matters beyond its experiences.

The real Chinaman may be stupid, but there is no absurdity in his stupidity.

But I am not quite sure that all of you are aware of the absolute necessity of this sense of honour in men for the carrying on of every form of human society; in fact, as the proverb which says: "There must be honour even among thieves, " show_even for the carrying on of a society of thieves.

Perhaps I can best express what I mean by calling the subject of our discussion the Chinese type of humanity, or, to put it in plainer and shorter words, the real Chinaman.

This sense of honour, called by Confucius the law of the gentleman, is not like the moral law of the philosopher and moralist, a dry, dead knowledge of the form or formula of right and wrong, but like the Righteousness of the Bible in Christianity, an instinctive, living, vivid perception of the indefinable, absolute essence of right and wrong or justice, the life and soul of justice called Honour.

This conflict of the heart and head in the new order of society and civilisation which men tried to reconstruct made the Chinese people feel dissatisfied with all civilisation, and in the agony and despair which this dissatisfaction produced, the Chinese people wanted to pull down and destroy all civilisation.

Well, as an architect who sees his house on fire, burning and falling over his head, and is convinced that he cannot possibly save the building, knows that the only thing for him to do is- to save the drawings and plans of the building so that it may afterwards be built again; so Confucius, seeing the inevitable destruction of the building of the Chinese civilisation which he conid not prevent, thought he would save the drawings and plans, and he accordingly saved the drawings and pla...

In this broad and universal sense, Confucianism, as you know, has become a religion, as its teachings have been acknowledged to be true and its rules of couduct to be binding by the whole Chinese race and nation, whereas the philosophy of Plato, of Aristotle and of Herbert Spencer has not become a religion even in this broad universal sense.

That is the true explanation of the insensibility of the Chinese to the physical discomforts of unclean surroundings and want of refinement.

'" But then, with all deference to Mr. Froude, I think he is also wrong when he says here that the Church, the Christian Church, ought to teach morality.

It is this fraud, this Jesuitism of the public men in modem society, who say and act on the principle that there is no morality, no sense of honour in politics and yet plausibly talk of the good of society and the good of the country; it is this Jesuitism which, as Carlyle says, gives rise to "the widespread suffering, mutiny, delirium, the hot rage of sansculottic insurrections, the cold rage of resuscitated tyrannies, brutal degradation of the millions, the pampered frivolity of the...

Confucius, in the State religion which he now gave, taught that, as under the old dispensation of what I have called the Family religion before his time, the wife and husband in a family are bound by the sacrament of marriage, called Chou Kung Chih Li, the Law of good manners of the Duke of Chou_to hold their contract of marriage inviolable and to absolutely abide by it, so under the new dispensation of the State religion which he now gave, the people and their sovereign in every Slate

It is not a spontaneous politeness which comes direct from the heart.

The Church religion in Europe makes marriage a sacrament, i.e.,something sacred and inviolable.

But if tables of statistics and the pure abstract sciences fill the Chinese with aversion, the physical sciences as they are now pursued in Europe, which require you to cut up and mutilate the body of a living animal in order to verify a scientific theory, would inspire the Chinese with repugnance and horror.

Men, like Laotzu, then in China as men like Tolstoy in Europe to-day, seeing the misery and suffering resulting from the conflict between the heart and the head, thought they saw something radically wrong in the very nature and constitution of society and civilisation.

The wild, savage man of Africa even, as soon as he emerges from a mere animal life and what is called the soul in him, is awakened, _ feels the need of religion.

A Scotch friend of mine in the Customs told me he once had a Chinese servant who was a perfect scamp, who lied, who "squeezed, " and who was always gambling, but when my friend fell ill with typhoid fever in an out-of-the-way port where he had no foreign friend to attend to him, this awful scamp of a Chinese servant nursed him with a care and devotion which he could not have expected from an intimate friend or near relation.

A Paper that was to have been read before the Oriental Society of Peking

LET me first of all explain to you what I propose, with your permission, this afternoon to discuss.

Nevertheless, it must be admitted that, as far as pure intellectual life goes, the Chinese are, to a certain extent, a people of arrested development.

This sense of honour, called by Confucius the law of the gentleman, is not like the moral law of the philosopher and moralist, a dry, dead knowledge of the form or formula of right and wrong, but like the Righteousness of the Bible in Christianity, an instinctive, living, vivid perception of the indefinable, absolute essence of right and wrong or justice, the life and soul of justice called Honour.

Men, like Laotzu, then in China as men like Tolstoy in Europe to-day, seeing the misery and suffering resulting from the conflict between the heart and the head, thought they saw something radically wrong in the very nature and constitution of society and civilisation.

In fact the politeness of the Japanese is like a flower without fragrance, whereas the politeness of a really polite Chinese has a perfume like the aroma of a precious ointment_instar unguenti fra-grantis_ which comes from the heart.

Now the first thing, I think, which will strike you in the old Chinese type of humanity is that there is nothing wild, savage or ferocious in him.

Confucius says, "The recognition of the law of the gentleman begins with the recognition of the relation between husband and wife.

Here let me quote an admirable saying of a famous living art critic, Mr. Bernard Berenson.

Laotzu and Chuang-tzu, the most brilliant of Laotzu' s disciples, told the Chinese people to throw away all civilisation.

The institution of the sacrament of marriage secures the stability and permanence of the Family, without which the human race would become extinct.

This book might also be called the Latter Day Annals, like the Latter Day Pamphlets of Carlyle.

Some of you may have personally known an old friend and colleague of mine in Wuchang_known him when he was Minister of the Foreign Office here in Peking_Mr. Liang Tun-yen, Mr. Liang told me, when he first received the appointment of the Customs Taotai of Hankow, that what made him wish and strive to become a great mandarin, to wear the red button, and what gave him pleasure then in receiving this appointment, was not because he cared for the red button, not because he would henceforth...

It is this fact which has made superficial foreign students of China think that the Chinese have made no progress in their civilisation and that the Chinese civilisation is a stagnant one.

Now, in answer to your question I am going to tell you that the system of the teachings of Confucius, called Confucianism, the State Mencius, speaking of the two purest and most Christlike characters in Chinese history, said: "When men heard of the spirit and temper of Po-yi and Shu-ch*i, the dissolute ruffian became unselfish and the cowardly man had courage.

But then it is important you should remember that this nation of children, who live a life of the heart, who are so primitive in many of their ways, have yet a power of mind and rationality which you do not find in a primitive people, a power of mind and rationality which has enabled them to deal with the complex and difficult problems of social life, government and civilisation with a success which, I will venture to say here, the ancient and modern nations of Europe have not been ab...

Confucius, further says:_"By cultivating respect for the dead, and carrying the memory back to the distant past, the good in the people will grow deep.

Indeed I think what was once said of a woman in the Bible may also be said, not only of the Chinese servant, but of the Chinese people generally:_"Much is forgiven them, because they love much.

It is this fraud, this Jesuitism of the public men in modem society, who say and act on the principle that there is no morality, no sense of honour in politics and yet plausibly talk of the good of society and the good of the country; it is this Jesuitism which, as Carlyle says, gives rise to "the widespread suffering, mutiny, delirium, the hot rage of sansculottic insurrections, the cold rage of resuscitated tyrannies, brutal degradation of the millions, the pampered frivolity of the...

In fact, Confucius tried hard all his life to put society and civilisation on the right track; to give it a true basis, and thus prevent the destruction of civilisation.

Laotzu said to the people of China: "Leave all that you have and follow me; follow me to the mountains, to the hermit's cell in the mountains, there to live a true life_a life of the heart, a life of immortality."

Therefore, unless you can find something which can give to the mass of mankind the same peace, the same sense of security and of permanence which religion affords them, the mass of mankind will always feel the need of religion.

The whole life of Chinaman is a life of feeling_not feeling in the sense of sensation which comes from the bodily organs, nor feeling in the sense of passions which flow, as you would say, from the nervous system, but feeling in the sense of emotion or human affection which comes from the deepest part of our nature_the heart or soul.

How valuable it is, I say, and how important it is that you should study it, try to understand it, love it, instead of ignoring, despising and trying to destroy it.

I say it is fraud because without the recognition of a sense of honour_the sense of honour which makes the gambler pay the last penny in his pocket to the player who wins from him, without this sense of honour, all transfer and possession of property which makes the inequality of the rich and poor in society, as well as the transfer of money on a gambling table, has no justification whatever and no binding force.

Martin Luther says admirably in his commentary on the Book of Daniel: "A God is simply that where-on the human heart rests with trust, faith, hope and love.

" Cogitavi dies antiques, et annos eternos in menti habui.

Some of you may have personally known an old friend and colleague of mine in Wuchang_known him when he was Minister of the Foreign Office here in Peking_Mr. Liang Tun-yen, Mr. Liang told me, when he first received the appointment of the Customs Taotai of Hankow, that what made him wish and strive to become a great mandarin, to wear the red button, and what gave him pleasure then in receiving this appointment, was not because he cared for the red button, not because he would henceforth...

In the first teacher and founder of their religion who, in Mo-hammedanism is called the Prophet and in Christianity the Mediator.

The politeness of the Japanese, on the other hand, although elaborate, is not so pleasing, and I have heard some foreigners express their dislike of it, because it is what may be called a rehearsal politeness_a politeness learnt by heart as in a theatrical piece.

Some of you may have personally known an old friend and colleague of mine in Wuchang_known him when he was Minister of the Foreign Office here in Peking_Mr. Liang Tun-yen, Mr. Liang told me, when he first received the appointment of the Customs Taotai of Hankow, that what made him wish and strive to become a great mandarin, to wear the red button, and what gave him pleasure then in receiving this appointment, was not because he cared for the red button, not because he would henceforth...

But then it is important you should remember that this nation of children, who live a life of the heart, who are so primitive in many of their ways, have yet a power of mind and rationality which you do not find in a primitive people, a power of mind and rationality which has enabled them to deal with the complex and difficult problems of social life, government and civilisation with a success which, I will venture to say here, the ancient and modern nations of Europe have not been able

Hence arose, as I said, this conflict between the heart and the head in China ,years'ago, as we see it now in Europe.

But that is only an outward, formal, or so to speak, legal sanction.

It is a working together in harmony of the heart and head.

Now the above are a few simple facts connected with the life of the Chinese people which anyone, even without any knowledge of Chinese, can observe and understand, and by examining these facts, I think, I have made good my hypothesis that the Chinese people live a life of the heart.

In fact the politeness of the Japanese is like a flower without fragrance, whereas the politeness of a really polite Chinese has a perfume like the aroma of a precious ointment_instar unguenti fra-grantis_ which comes from the heart.

" * The moral law of the moralist again tells us we must obey the law of our being, called Conscience, i.e., our heart.

The subject of our paper I have called "The Spirit of the Chinese people."! do not mean here merely to speak of the character or characteristics of the Chinese people.

That, I am sure, you will all agree with me, is a very interesting subject, especially at the present moment, when from what we see going on around us in China today, it would seem that the Chinese type of humanity_the real Chinaman_is going to disappear and, in his place, we are going to have a new type of humanity_the progressive or modern Chinaman.

It is this fraud, this Jesuitism of the public men in modem society, who say and act on the principle that there is no morality, no sense of honour in politics and yet plausibly talk of the good of society and the good of the country; it is this Jesuitism which, as Carlyle says, gives rise to "the widespread suffering, mutiny, delirium, the hot rage of sansculottic insurrections, the cold rage of resuscitated tyrannies, brutal degradation of the millions, the pampered frivolity of the...

Let us take, for example, such a trivial matter as gambling in social life.

" But by the word " gentle" I mean absence of hardness, harshness, roughness, or violence, in fact of anything which jars upon you.

Matthew Arnold truly says: "The noblest souls of whatever creed, the pagan Empedocles as well as the Christian Paul, have insisted on the necessity of inspiration, a living emotion to make moral actions perfect."

What Matthew Arnold says of the poetry of Homer is true of all Chinese standard literature, that "it has not only the power of profoundly touching that natural heart of humanity, which it is the weakness of Voltaire that he cannot reach, but can also address the understanding with all Voltaire' s admirable simplicity and rationality.

Mencius said: "Of the three great sins against filial piety the greatest is to have no posterity."

I have compared the Chinese type of humanity to a domesticated animal.

Therefore philosophers, like Spinoza, "for whom, " it has been said, "the crown of the intellectual life is a transport, as for the saint the crown of the religious life is a transport," do not feel the need of religion.

In this respect, the Chinese people, old as they are as a nation, are to the present day, a nation of children.

It is, for instance, also for this reason that we; all of us, can remember things which we learnt when we were children much better than we can remember things which we learnt in mature life.

The policeman who compels the merchant to fulfil his contract, uses force.

Therefore, Christ said: "Except your righteousness (or morality) exceed the righteousness (or morality) of the Scribes and Pharisees (ie., philosopher and moralist) ye shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

The Chinese people have this power, this strong power of sympathy, because they live wholly, or almost wholly, a life of the heart.

Let us see whether with this clue that the Chinese people live a life of the heart we can explain not only detached facts such as the two illustrations I have given above, but also general characteristics which we see in the actual life of the Chinese people.

Now you, all of you, even those who believe that there is no morality in politics_all of you, I think, know and will admit the importance of this sense of honour in men in human society.

"Whether we provide for action or conversation, " says Dr. Johnson. "whether we wish to be useful or pleasing, the first requisite is the religious and moral knowledge of right and wrong; the next, an acquaintance with the history of mankind and with those examples which may be said to embody truth and prove by events the reasonableness of opinions.

A Scotch friend of mine in the Customs told me he once had a Chinese servant who was a perfect scamp, who lied, who "squeezed, " and who was always gambling, but when my friend fell ill with typhoid fever in an out-of-the-way port where he had no foreign friend to attend to him, this awful scamp of a Chinese servant nursed him with a care and devotion which he could not have expected from an intimate friend or near relation.

Well, as an architect who sees his house on fire, burning and falling over his head, and is convinced that he cannot possibly save the building, knows that the only thing for him to do is- to save the drawings and plans of the building so that it may afterwards be built again; so Confucius, seeing the inevitable destruction of the building of the Chinese civilisation which he conid not prevent, thought he would save the drawings and plans, and he accordingly saved the drawings and plans of t...

The truth of the matter is, _the reason why the Chinese people do not feel the need of religion is because they have in Confucianism a system of philosophy and ethics, a synthesis of human society and civilisation which can take the place of religion.

Confucius says: "To gather in the same place where our fathers before us have gathered; to perform the same ceremonies which they before us have performed; to play the same music which they before us have played: to pay respect to those whom they honoured; to love those who were dear to them; in fact, to serve them now dead as if they were living, and now departed, as if they were still with us, that is the highest achievement of Filial Piety."

The Mongolian mind being eminently phlegmatic and. unspeculative, naturally rebels against the idea of investigating matters beyond its experiences.

In short, it is this combination of fraud and force, Jesuitism and Militarism, lawyer and policeman, which has produced Anarchists and Anarchism in modem society, this combination of force and fraud outraging the moral sense in man and producing madness which makes the Anarchist throw bomb and dynamite against the lawyer, politician, magistrate and president of a republic.

Some of you may have personally known an old friend and colleague of mine in Wuchang_known him when he was Minister of the Foreign Office here in Peking_Mr. Liang Tun-yen, Mr. Liang told me, when he first received the appointment of the Customs Taotai of Hankow, that what made him wish and strive to become a great mandarin, to wear the red button, and what gave him pleasure then in receiving this appointment, was not because he cared for the red button, not because he would henceforth...

It is perfectly true that Confucianism is not a religion in the ordinary European sense of the word.

But for the mass of mankind who are not poets, artists, philosophers or men of science; for the mass of mankind whose lives are full of hardships and who are exposed every moment to the shock of accident from the threatening forces of Nature and the cruel merciless passions of their fellow-men, what is it that can lighten for them the

"burden of the mystery of all this unintelligible world?"

The one and sole authority which makes men really obey moral laws or rules of moral conduct is the moral sense, the law of the gentleman in them.

Confucius, as some of you may know, lived in what is called a period of expansion in the history of China_a period in which the feudal age had come to an end; in which the feudal, the semi-patriarchal social order and form of government had to be expanded and reconstructed.

You can now understand Goethe's confession of faith which he puts into the mouth of Faust, beginning with the words:

Lifts not the Heaven its dome above?

Confucius says: "To gather in the same place where our fathers before us have gathered; to perform the same ceremonies which they before us have performed; to play the same music which they before us have played: to pay respect to those whom they honoured; to love those who were dear to them; in fact, to serve them now dead as if they were living, and now departed, as if they were still with us, that is the highest achievement of Filial Piety."

But you will say that the merchant who repudiates his contract can be taken to the law-court.

Let us see whether with this clue that the Chinese people live a life of the heart we can explain not only detached facts such as the two illustrations I have given above, but also general characteristics which we see in the actual life of the Chinese people.

" Tzii Yu, a disciple of Confucius, is quoted in the Sayings and Discourses of Confucius, saying: "A wise man devotes his attention to the foundation of life_the chief end of man.

This inspiration or living e-motion is known to everyone who has ever felt an impulse which makes him obey the rules of moral conduct above all considerations of self-interest or fear.

Again, in presence of the constant change, vicissitude and transition of things in their own lives_birth, childhood, youth, old age and death, and the mystery and uncertainty which these inspire, religion gives to the mass of mankind also a refuge_a refuge in which they can find a sense of permanence; and that refuge is the belief in a future life.

With the idea of a future life still unawakened, a plain, matter-of-fact system of morality, such as that enunciated by Confucius, was sufficient for all the wants of the Chinese.

Some of you may have personally known an old friend and colleague of mine in Wuchang_known him when he was Minister of the Foreign Office here in Peking_Mr. Liang Tun-yen, Mr. Liang told me, when he first received the appointment of the Customs Taotai of Hankow, that what made him wish and strive to become a great mandarin, to wear the red button, and what gave him pleasure then in receiving this appointment, was not because he cared for the red button, not because he would henceforth be ric...

Nevertheless, this refuge, the belief in God, taught by religion, although illusory, an illusion, helps towards enabling men to obey the rules of moral conduct, for, as I said, the belief in God gives to men, to the mass of mankind, a sense of security and a sense of permanence in their existence.

The character of the Northern Chinese, as you know, is as different from that of the Southern Chinese as the character of the Germans is different from that of the Italians.

This absolute stability and permanence of the State again secures the infinite continuance and lastingness of society.

A thorough-bred Arab horse understands his English master not because he has studied English grammar nor because he has an instinct for the English language, but because he loves and is attached to his master.

This abnormally strong emotional nature made them feel intensely the emotion of love or human affection, which, as I have said, is the source of the inspiration in religion, the soul of religion.

In fact, as an English poet says, the burden of the mystery of the universe weighs upon them.

Confucius, as some of you may know, lived in what is called a period of expansion in the history of China_a period in which the feudal age had come to an end; in which the feudal, the semi-patriarchal social order and form of government had to be expanded and reconstructed.

Now what is this inspiration or living emotion in Religion, the paramount virtue of Religion upon which, as I said.

Chinese characteristics have often been described before, but I think you will agree with me that such description or enumeration of the characteristics of the Chinese people hitherto have given us no picture at all of the inner being of the Chinaman.

How valuable it is, I say, and how important it is that you should study it, try to understand it, love it, instead of ignoring, despising and trying to destroy it.

The temples, rites and ceremonies of Taoism and Buddhism in China are more objects of recreation than of edification; they touch the aesthetic sense, so to speak, of the Chinese people rather than their moral or religious sense; in fact, they appeal more to their imagination than to their heart or soul.

Well, as an architect who sees his house on fire, burning and falling over his head, and is convinced that he cannot possibly save the building, knows that the only thing for him to do is- to save the drawings and plans of the building so that it may afterwards be built again; so Confucius, seeing the inevitable destruction of the building of the Chinese civilisation which he conid not prevent, thought he would save the drawings and plans, and he accordingly saved the drawings and pla...

The Mongolian mind being eminently phlegmatic and. unspeculative, naturally rebels against the idea of investigating matters beyond its experiences.

In other words Religion tells us in obeying the law of our being we must obey the true law of our being, not the animal or carnal law of our being called by St. Paul the law of the mind of the flesh, and very well defined by the famous disciple of Auguste Comte, Monsieur Littre, as the law of self preservation and reproduction; but the true law of our being called by St. Paul the law of the mind of the Spirit, and defined by Confucius as the law of the gentleman.

But, as to-day I have not the time, I will only here try to tell you of one principal and most important thing which Confucius has done for the Chinese nation_the one thing he did in his life by which, Confucius himself said, men in after ages would know him, would know what he had done for them.

Some, while they satisfied the head_the intellect of the Chinese people, did not satisfy their heart; others, while they satisfied their heart, did not satisfy their head.

Thus the whole system of teaching of Confucius which I have called the State religion in China consists really only of two things, loyalty to the Emperor and filial piety to parents_in Chinese, Chung Hsiao.

In this book Confucius taught that, as in all the ordinary relations and dealings between men in human society, there is, besides the base motives of interest and of fear, a higher and nobler motive to influence them in their conduct, a higher and nobler motive which rises above all considerations of interest and fear, the motive called Duty; so in this important relation of all in human society, the relation between the people of a State or nation and the Head of that State or nation...

The temples, rites and ceremonies of Taoism and Buddhism in China are more objects of recreation than of edification; they touch the aesthetic sense, so to speak, of the Chinese people rather than their moral or religious sense; in fact, they appeal more to their imagination than to their heart or soul.

Indeed, as Matthew Arnold says:

"Moral rules, apprehended as ideas first, and then rigorously followed as laws are and must be for the sage only.

Confucius says: "To gather in the same place where our fathers before us have gathered; to perform the same ceremonies which they before us have performed; to play the same music which they before us have played: to pay respect to those whom they honoured; to love those who were dear to them; in fact, to serve them now dead as if they were living, and now departed, as if they were still with us, that is the highest achievement of Filial Piety."

A thorough-bred Arab horse understands his English master not because he has studied English grammar nor because he has an instinct for the English language, but because he loves and is attached to his master.

In this book Confucius gave a resume of the history of a false and decadent state of society and civilisation in which he traced all the suffering and misery of that false and decadent state of society and civilisation to its real cause_to the fact that men had not a true idea of a State; no right conception of the true nature of the duty which they owe to the State, to the head of the State, their ruler and Sovereign.

Intact, the three Articles of Faith, called in Chinese the san kang, three cardinal duties in Con-fucianism or the State religion of China, are, in their order of importance_first, absolute duty of loyalty to the Emperor; second, filial piety and ancestor-worship; third, inviolability of marriage and absolute submission of the wife to the husband.

I will here venture to give you an explanation_a hypothesis, if you like to call it so_of the secret of this power of sympathy in the Chinese people and my explanation is this.

Using a term which is applied to animals, we may say of the real Chinaman that he is a domesticated creature.

This sense of honour, called by Confucius the law of the gentleman, is not like the moral law of the philosopher and moralist, a dry, dead knowledge of the form or formula of right and wrong, but like the Righteousness of the Bible in Christianity, an instinctive, living, vivid perception of the indefinable, absolute essence of right and wrong or justice, the life and soul of justice called Honour.

This intense feeling or emotion of love or human affection enabled them to see what I have called the indefinable, absolute essence of right and wrong or justice, the soul of justice which they called righteousness, and this vivid perception of the absolute essence of justice enabled them to see the unity of the laws of right and wrong or moral laws.

I say it is fraud because without the recognition of a sense of honour_the sense of honour which makes the gambler pay the last penny in his pocket to the player who wins from him, without this sense of honour, all transfer and possession of property which makes the inequality of the rich and poor in society, as well as the transfer of money on a gambling table, has no justification whatever and no binding force.

In fact, this inspiration or living emotion that is in religion is found in every action of men which is not prompted by the base motive of self-interest or fear, but by the sense of duty and honour.

"

That l_amed English professor is right, when he says that the Chinese people do not feel the need of religion, because they have the teachings of Confucius, but he is altogether wrong, when he asserts that the Chinese people do not feel the need of religion because the Mongolian mind is phlegmatic and unspeculative.

In short the wonderful peculiarity of the Chinese people as a race, is that they possess the secret of perpetual youth.

This intelligence of a domesticated animal is an intelligence which comes not from reasoning nor from instinct, but from sympathy, from a feeling of love and attachment.

Now you will not expect me to give you a lecture on Chinese civilisation within the time at my disposal.

A thorough-bred Arab horse understands his English master not because he has studied English grammar nor because he has an instinct for the English language, but because he loves and is attached to his master.

Take a man of the lowest class of the population in China and, I think, you will agree with me that there is less of animality in him, less of the wild animal, of what the Germans call Rohheit, than you will find in a man of the same class in a European society.

Mr. Froude says: "Many a hundred sermons have I heard in England on the mysteries of the faith, on the divine mission of the clergy, on apostolic succession, etc., but never one that I can recollect on common honesty, on those primitive commandments, 'Thou shalt not lie' and 'Thou shalt not steal.

Love includes all true human affection, the feelings of affection between parents and children as well as the emotion of love and kindness, pity, compassion, mercy towards all creatures; in fact, all true human emotions contained in that Chinese word Jen('\~H), for which the nearest equivalent in the European languages is, in the old dialect of Christianity, godliness, because it is the most godlike quality in man, and in modern dialect, humanity, love of humanity, or, in one word, love.

In philosophical language in China it is called Tao_the Way.

It is this fraud, this Jesuitism of the public men in modem society, who say and act on the principle that there is no morality, no sense of honour in politics and yet plausibly talk of the good of society and the good of the country; it is this Jesuitism which, as Carlyle says, gives rise to "the widespread suffering, mutiny, delirium, the hot rage of sansculottic insurrections, the cold rage of resuscitated tyrannies, brutal degradation of the millions, the pampered frivolity of the...

Mr. Froude says: "Many a hundred sermons have I heard in England on the mysteries of the faith, on the divine mission of the clergy, on apostolic succession, etc., but never one that I can recollect on common honesty, on those primitive commandments, 'Thou shalt not lie' and 'Thou shalt not steal.

A Scotch friend of mine in the Customs told me he once had a Chinese servant who was a perfect scamp, who lied, who "squeezed, " and who was always gambling, but when my friend fell ill with typhoid fever in an out-of-the-way port where he had no foreign friend to attend to him, this awful scamp of a Chinese servant nursed him with a care and devotion which he could not have expected from an intimate friend or near relation.

It is this fraud, this Jesuitism of the public men in modem society, who say and act on the principle that there is no morality, no sense of honour in politics and yet plausibly talk of the good of society and the good of the country; it is this Jesuitism which, as Carlyle says, gives rise to "the widespread suffering, mutiny, delirium, the hot rage of sansculottic insurrections, the cold rage of resuscitated tyrannies, brutal degradation of the millions, the pampered frivolity of the...

In this system their life had to be carried forward; yet they began to feel_they had a sense that this system was not of their creation, that it by no means corresponded with the wants of their actual life; that, for them, it was customary, not rational.

It is this fraud, this Jesuitism of the public men in modem society, who say and act on the principle that there is no morality, no sense of honour in politics and yet plausibly talk of the good of society and the good of the country; it is this Jesuitism which, as Carlyle says, gives rise to "the widespread suffering, mutiny, delirium, the hot rage of sansculottic insurrections, the cold rage of resuscitated tyrannies, brutal degradation of the millions, the pampered frivolity of the...

Matthew Arnold truly says: "The noblest souls of whatever creed, the pagan Empedocles as well as the Christian Paul, have insisted on the necessity of inspiration, a living emotion to make moral actions perfect."

In fact, Confucius tried hard all his life to put society and civilisation on the right track; to give it a true basis, and thus prevent the destruction of civilisation.

In fact, the reason why educated foreigners find it so difficult to learn Chinese, is because they are too educated, too intellectually and scientifically educated.

But now I must tell you that long before Confucius' time there existed already in China an undefined and unwritten code of the law of the gentleman.

The Christian Catechism asks:_"What is the chief end of man'?"

The Chinese people in Confucius' s time found themselves with an immense system of institutions, established facts, accredited dogmas, customs, laws_in fact, an immense system of society and civilisation which had come down to them from their venerated ancestors.

In this book Confucius taught that, as in all the ordinary relations and dealings between men in human society, there is, besides the base motives of interest and of fear, a higher and nobler motive to influence them in their conduct, a higher and nobler motive which rises above all considerations of interest and fear, the motive called Duty; so in this important relation of all in human society, the relation between the people of a State or nation and the Head of that State or nation...

Nevertheless, it must be admitted that, as far as pure intellectual life goes, the Chinese are, to a certain extent, a people of arrested development.

Wordsworth in his lines on Tintern Abbey says:_

"... nor less, I trust To them I may have owed another gift Of aspect more sublime: that blessed mood In which the burthen of the mystery, In which the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world, Is lightened:_that serene and blessed mood In which the affections gently lead us on, _

Until, the breath of this corporeal frame And even motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and become ...

That, I am sure, you will all agree with me, is a very interesting subject, especially at the present moment, when from what we see going on around us in China today, it would seem that the Chinese type of humanity_the real Chinaman_is going to disappear and, in his place, we are going to have a new type of humanity_the progressive or modern Chinaman.

Thus this cult of ancestor-worship, together with the Divine duty of loyalty, in Confucianism gives to the Chinese people the same sense of permanence in their existence while they live and the same consolation when they die which the belief in a future life in religion gives to the mass of mankind in other countries.

Neither does it come to him from instinct, such as the intelligence of the fox, _ the vulpine intelligence which knows where eatable chickens are to be found.

Confucius indeed was descended from a race of kings, the house of Shang, the dynasty which ruled over China before the dynasty under which Confucius lived_a race of men who had the strong emotional nature of the Hebrew people.

This great change necessarily brought with it not only confusion in the affairs of the world, but also confusion in men' s minds.

Some of you may have personally known an old friend and colleague of mine in Wuchang_known him when he was Minister of the Foreign Office here in Peking_Mr. Liang Tun-yen, Mr. Liang told me, when he first received the appointment of the Customs Taotai of Hankow, that what made him wish and strive to become a great mandarin, to wear the red button, and what gave him pleasure then in receiving this appointment, was not because he cared for the red button, not because he would henceforth be ric...

But Confucius, who also saw the suffering and misery of the then state of society and civilisation, thought he recognised the evil was not in the nature and constitution of society and civilisation, but in the wrong track which society and civilisation had taken, in the wrong basis which men had taken for the foundation of society and civilisation.

" *

Nevertheless Confucius says we can know what the law of the gentleman is, if we will study and try to acquire the fine feeling or good taste of the gentleman.

In fact what I want to say is, that even in the faults and blemishes of body, mind and character of the real Chinaman, there is nothing which revolts you.

Now the spirit of the Chinese people, as it is seen in the best specimens of the products of their art and literature, is really what Matthew Arnold calls imaginative reason.

It is seldom that you will find a real Chinaman of the old school, even of the lowest type, who is positively repulsive.

Confucius, as some of you may know, lived in what is called a period of expansion in the history of China_a period in which the feudal age had come to an end; in which the feudal, the semi-patriarchal social order and form of government had to be expanded and reconstructed.

" * Thus, according to Confucius, the difference between Religion and moral law_the moral law of the philosopher and moralist_is that Religion is a refined and well ordered moral law, a deeper or higher standard of moral law.

" Now what I want to say of the European civilisation is that it is, as Mr. Berenson says of European art, a battlefield for divided interests; a continuous warfare for the divided interests of science and art on the one hand, and of religion and philosophy on the other; in fact a terrible battlefield where the head and the heart_the soul and the intellect_come into constant conflict.

" The eyes and understanding of the foreigner in China see many defects and blemishes in the habits and in the character of the Chinese, but his heart is attracted to them, because the Chinese have a heart, or, as I said, live a life of the heart_a life of emotion or human affection.

A thorough-bred Arab horse understands his English master not because he has studied English grammar nor because he has an instinct for the English language, but because he loves and is attached to his master.

Sir Robert K. Douglas, Professor of Chinese in the London University, in his study of Confucianism, says:_"Upwards of forty generations of Chinamen have been absolutely subjected to the dicta of one man.

Wordsworth in his lines on Tintern Abbey says:_

"... nor less, I trust To them I may have owed another gift Of aspect more sublime: that blessed mood In which the burthen of the mystery, In which the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world, Is lightened:_that serene and blessed mood In which the affections gently lead us on, _

Until, the breath of this corporeal frame And even motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and become ...

Indeed I may say here that the real Chinaman lives so much a life of emotion or human affection, a life of the soul, that he may be said sometimes to neglect more than he ought to do, even the necessary requirements of the life of the senses of a man living in this world composed of body and soul.

The greatest service he did was that, in saving the drawings and plans of their civilisation, he made a new synthesis, a new interpretation of the plans of that civilisation, and in that new synthesis he gave the Chinese people the true idea of a State_a true, rational, permanent, absolute basis of a State.

The heavy and the weary weight of All this unintelligible world.

Well, as an architect who sees his house on fire, burning and falling over his head, and is convinced that he cannot possibly save the building, knows that the only thing for him to do is- to save the drawings and plans of the building so that it may afterwards be built again; so Confucius, seeing the inevitable destruction of the building of the Chinese civilisation which he conid not prevent, thought he would save the drawings and plans, and he accordingly saved the drawings and pla...

Thus the real authority for the obligation to obey rules of moral conduct is the moral sense, the law of the gentleman, in man.

Matthew Arnold truly says: "The noblest souls of whatever creed, the pagan Empedocles as well as the Christian Paul, have insisted on the necessity of inspiration, a living emotion to make moral actions perfect."

Now you will not expect me to give you a lecture on Chinese civilisation within the time at my disposal.

In order to explain this, I must ask you to allow me to go a little more into detail about Confucius and what he did.

But now before I finally conclude, I want to give you a warning.

Neither does it come to him from instinct, such as the intelligence of the fox, _ the vulpine intelligence which knows where eatable chickens are to be found.

There is, of course, the difference that the one has a supernatural origin and element in it, whereas the other has not.